By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Almost everyone has experienced the services of a nurse at one time or another, whether it be the nurse in the doctor’s office who takes blood pressure and temperature to the critical care nurse trying to keep people alive.
Nurses are vital to life, and it takes special people who can balance expertise and compassion to embark on a career in nursing.
St. Elizabeth Hospital has set up a program to help students on their journey to become nurses.
This program, called SNAP, stands for Student Nurse Achievement Program, and it is a 12-18-month paid training program, including clinical experience to prepare for the registered nurse role after graduation.
The program invests in student nurses through three levels — student nurse 1, 2, and 3. Level one is for students who have completed their first clinical rotation in an accredited nursing program, level two is for students currently enrolled in a nursing program who are entering the last year of a four-year program, or the last of a two term program, and level 3 is for those who have completed 164 service hours as a student nurse II to meet the qualifications for student nurse III.
Austin Duncan just graduated from Northern Kentucky University — and graduated from the SNAP program also.
“I had been working at St Elizabeth in the emergency room as an associate, and I had just passed my first semester of nursing school, and started my second semester when they reached out to me,” said Duncan. “An HR representative from NKU also talked to us about the program.”
St. Elizabeth offers to pay students $21 per hour to be in the SNAP program, for a specific number of hours. They want to invest in students, understanding that the more knowledgeable the student is the better nurse they will become.
Duncan was able to shadow nurses in both the CICU and the surgical ICU. He said that he had just now accepted a position at St. Elizabeth to work in the cardiovascular surgical ICU.
“They are very specialized at Edgewood,” he said. “A lot of hospitals have generalized ICU’s, but Edgewood has a lot of different intensive care units, with very specialized care.”
He said the SNAP program fills out the experience of nursing school, enhances the learning, and gives the student more assurance, and more opportunities to practice the skills that nursing schools teach. The students are permitted to watch, and then do the tasks the nurses perform, with the nurses right there, supervising closely.
“There is a science to nursing, and then there’s the art of nursing,” Duncan said. “The art of nursing is how it is implemented. It allows you to be more proficient in the art of nursing.”
He said the program has been a great resource to help him figure out where he wanted to be. He said he knew generally where he wanted to specialize, and the SNAP program helped him to be confident that he was going in the right direction, and be exactly where he wanted to be.
“I felt like I was swimming in a pool of options and SNAP helped me find out what options I wanted,” he explained. “It is kind of overwhelming. I knew I wanted to be in ICU somewhere, but I had a list of over 100 different options about where I wanted to try to go, and SNAP was willing to pay me to try different options so I could find what I wanted to do.”
Duncan received a scholarship from St Elizabeth in addition to being in the SNAP program.
“I think this program is especially designed to best equip nurses to be safe and proficient nurses,” he said. “They are out to raise smart, wise, new grad nurses, and give them the most experience they can. There’s wisdom that can be gained from experience.”
Information about the SNAP program can be found at the St. Elizabeth website. There is information about the program and those who would be eligible for it.