Above: Jesse Creel, an Intensive Care nurse at Nacogdoches Medical Center works on charting his patient’s medical information while chatting with a co-worker (not pictured). Creel is in the newest class of the Versant RN Residency Program at the hospital and said it’s one of the main reasons he chose to work at the hospital. Left: Paramedic-turned-Med/Surg nurse, Tiffany Batten values the experience she gathered through the Nacogdoches Medical Center Versant RN Residency Program and said it helped her learn how to manage her time well while working with patients. Right: Nacogdoches Medical Center Cath Lab Supervisor Lauri Lee has been a nurse at Nacogdoches Medical Center for several years and began in the first class of the Versant RN Residency Program, getting valuable hands-on training as a new graduate, while still being employed at the hospital.
Residency program helps hospital retain RNs
By ERIN McKEON
Sentinel Staff
Laurie Lee always wanted to be a nurse. But so did a lot of her college friends who quit nursing in the first year or two, she said.
Those friends didn’t feel they had enough of a transition into actually being a nurse, Lee said. Instead, they felt like they went straight from college to having people’s lives in their hands. They felt they didn’t have enough guidance in making the switch from books to real-life application.
Lee didn’t have that problem. She was one of several then new graduates who participated in the first Nacogdoches Medical Center Versant RN Residency Program about five years ago. Nacogdoches Medical Center was the first adult acute care hospital in Texas to offer the program when it began in 2007.
“The Versant (RN Residency) Program was phenomenal for me,” Lee said. “My preceptor (teacher/supervisor) was always right there for the 18 weeks. Ray never had anyone but me and our patients to worry about.”
The program was the hospital’s answer to high nurse vacancy and a need to hire more new graduates while at the some time give them the experience needed to feel competent handling their own patient load, Nacogdoches Medical Center Director of Clinical Education Claudia Schaub said.
“We want to get the graduate novice nurse to at least advanced beginner, competent level, and we do that in five ways,” she said.
Classroom time brings in physicians and community members who are “subject matter experts” to speak to the students, taking skills learned in schoolbooks and translating them to real-life work in the hospital.
Clinical time with preceptors, the experienced nurses who take the new graduates under their wings, and time spent with mentors going over how work is progressing and ways to grow professionally and mentally are key to the program, Schaub said.
Jesse Creel graduated from Panola College in December and started in the Versant program in February.
“We work regular 12-hour shifts like everyone else, but we have an extra hand there if we need help or have a question,” he said. “When you’re in nursing school, you get seven days of clinicals each semester, and nursing school gives you the foundation to build on. Once you graduate, a program like Versant gets you the rest of the way.”
And that is exactly the goal of the program, Schaub said.
Tiffany Batten, a nurse on the Medical Surgical (MedSurg) floor, said the experience of the residency has helped her grow as a nurse. Though she had some previous paramedic experience, the world of nursing is so different and so varied. Starting out in the Versant program gave her the comfort and confidence level she needed to feel like she was ready as a nurse.
“The first couple of months are very scary, and you can kind of freak out a bit,” Batten said. “But here, we were able to have other nurses to help us with whatever we needed help with. I chose Medical Center strictly because of the 18-week Versant program.”
Studies have shown 35 percent of new nurses leave the field in the first 12 months and 55 percent within the first 24 months of working as a nurse, Schaub said.
“With a residency, all of that is cut down because those new graduates become a part of the culture, a part of the team,” she said. “We never use our residents as staff until they graduate. If the preceptor is assigned six patients, those same six patients are assigned to the resident, too. The preceptor turns the care of the patients over (slowly) to the resident.”
In the end, she said, the preceptor is sitting around twiddling his thumbs because the resident doesn’t have many questions.
“The preceptor helps them learn how to take all of that book knowledge they have and put it to use,” Schaub said. “They will quiz them, ‘why are we doing this?’ and ask, ‘this is what the report is, what should we do next?’”
Each resident also “loops” through each department in the hospital to get a better idea of what goes on.
“It taught you their flow, how they work, what they need, who they are, and exposed you to the mechanics of their departments,” Lee said. “The Versant program was a great experience for me in a very supportive, nonstressful way of learning.”
“It’s pretty much a win-win situation,” Schaub said.
Erin McKeon can be reached at
emckeon@dailysentinel.com.