Denier Dismukes hasn’t always wanted to be a nurse.
In fact, she earned two other degrees — a bachelor’s in biology and master’s in biomedical science — before she decided to enroll in the Mississippi University for Women’s associate nursing program.
Now Dismukes is one of the first two students at MUW to participate in the Mississippi Earn Program, an initiative designed to provide students with meaningful clinical experiences and allow hospitals to mentor future nurses well before they start the job.
“What this program is designed to do is help bridge the gap between the academic environment and the actual hospital organization,” said Mary Helen Ruffin, chair of the associate nursing program at The W. “It is to help students feel comfortable in that hospital, to be familiar with their hospital policy and to understand how the staff work and interact, so that when they are able to work as a registered nurse, they already feel comfortable in that environment.”
The W is the first university in the state to participate in the program through a partnership with Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle. Students who are selected for the program have to complete an externship course, which similarly gives students hands-on experience while being taught by registered nurses. Two students were selected from this year’s externship cohort.
Unlike the externship, each student in the Mississippi Earn Program is assigned a specific registered nurse at BMH-GT who works directly with the student, serving as a mentor throughout the program.
“Yes, (the coaches) are there to help facilitate that student’s education, but they’re really there as a mentor and role model as well,” Ruffin said. “It’s helped to build that rapport and strengthen the students, their knowledge, their attitude and their skillset because they feel comfortable asking maybe some difficult questions that they may not feel comfortable asking as an inexperienced nurse.”
If the students can build relationships with nurses and other staff at the hospital, it will make the transition into becoming a registered nurse easier, Ruffin said.
Mary Catherine Blunt is the other student nursing resident working at BMH-GT. Having a mentor to help with new skills while being outside of the typical clinical setting is an asset, she said.
“It’s building our confidence not only in our skills but ourselves,” Blunt said. “We’re working alongside a competent nurse, but we’re also becoming more competent and skilled the longer that we do.”
Chief Nursing Officer Alicia Grant said coaches plan the students’ days at the hospital to make sure they have learning opportunities set up. The coaches also work with their managers and directors to make sure the learning experiences are conducive to what the students are learning in their classes.
Grant said the coaches were basically handpicked. Students often rotate through the hospital for clinical training, so it was already clear which nurses have a knack for teaching, she said.
“We’ve got awesome nurses throughout the hospital, but to serve as a clinical coach, we had to make sure that we had the best of the best,” Grant said. “They have to be really involved with the students’ learning activities, so we want to make sure that they’re not just good clinically, but their communication is good too as well as their desire to teach.”
‘They’re already embedded in our culture’
While in the program, student nurse residents are paid and earn clinical credit that goes toward their degree. After graduation, the students will join BMH-GT as a full-time employee for another year of the program.
Having a new nurse who was fully trained in-house is a benefit for the hospital, Ruffin said.
“They know that they have got a student who is going to work for another year, and they have already been mentored to hospital policies,” she said. “They’ve already maybe witnessed some of the more emergent situations that they may not get to see as a student.”
Grant said it can take time for a new nurse to adjust to the job with all the added pressures of being in a new environment, like learning new rules and building new relationships. That’s why it’s so helpful that these students are already comfortable at BMH-GT, she said.
“They’re already embedded in our culture, and so they don’t have all of those added pressures when they graduate,” she said. “They’re just part of the team already. They can settle in and practice the new skills that they’ve learned … and I think that’s a huge part in retaining those nurses.”
Ruffin and Davis both said there’s hope for expanding the program in the future.
“Our hope is to grow this to where we are able to secure more spots with Baptist and help their nurse shortage as well as having an impact on the community,” Ruffin said. “This is a program that I do see will become more of a national standard.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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