Focus on care

DALTON, Ga. — Dalton State College nursing students say they’re getting more hands-on experience with patients, thanks to a new partnership with Hamilton Medical Center.

“It is an awesome experience,” said second-year nursing student Lori Brady, 21, one of the first nine students to train under the new program. “We have been able to be active in so much more patient care and active learning, instead of just observing.”

Hamilton Medical Center this fall created a unit dedicated to help train nursing students. For one semester of their clinical training, students get to stay in that unit and work closely with its nurses instead of rotating among units every few weeks. The program is based on one at Memphis’ Methodist University Hospital.

The consistency gives students more time to learn a unit’s routine, staff and patients, said Lynda Ridley, clinical instructor at Dalton State College and director of clinical education at Hamilton Medical Center.

“The whole experience is as if they’re a (certified) nurse, but they’re monitored the whole time,” she said.

The first nine Dalton trainees are able to put in IVs, administer shots and get to know their patients earlier in their career than is typical, the students said.

Hamilton Medical Center nurse Julie Goins said that helping train possible future colleagues before they even graduate will make on-the-job training easier later.

Feedback from students and clinical staff has been positive so far, said Dr. Cordia Starling, dean of the Dalton State School of Nursing.

She called the pilot program “one of the newest things in nursing education.”

Nursing schools must strike a balance between ensuring diverse experience by rotating units and making sure the students get the consistency that allows them truly to engage with patients, Dr. Starling said.

“We’ll look at the learning (on the new unit) and see if students really gained something extraordinarily (more than) what they normally would get,” she said.

Dalton resident and patient Arthur Taylor, 88, said he’s appreciated the treatment he’s received from nursing student Nancy Szollosi.

Mr. Taylor came to the hospital with pneumonia, then had a heart attack.

“She’s got a good education. She’s got (her clinical supervisor) right at her elbow,” he said. “She’ll be a credit to the nursing profession.”

For Ms. Szollosi, 53, the close work with patients and attentive supervision from her nurse teachers has been a great reminder of why she decided to take up nursing as a second career, she said.

“Every day it just reinforces this is where I need to be,” she said.