Columbia Memorial | Health Compass | Summer 2019

Training tomorrow’s nurses today CMH supports nursing students at Clatsop Community College (CCC) through scholarships; program funding; and access to practical, hands-on experience. Nursing programs are expensive to offer. The Oregon State Board of Nursing requires colleges to maintain one instructor for every eight students in the clinical setting, and each student must spend 900 hours in a clinical setting. Support like CMH’s subsidizes the cost of the nursing program, allowing the college to keep tuition low for students and making it possible for them to complete their education. “Our partnership with CMH has empowered literally hundreds of CCC nursing students in the past 30-plus years to learn, grow and develop their professional practice in a collaborative, supportive clinical environment,” says CCC Nursing Instructor Christina Kotson. “As students rotate throughout the hospital, they learn to provide competent, safe, patient-centered care by working alongside expert nurses, physicians, therapists and other members of the CMH team. Without these opportunities, our students would not be able to meet the increasingly complex demands of health care.” Associate degree nursing programs, like the one at CCC, are a cost-effective path to well-paying jobs in our community. By supporting the CCC nursing program, the hospital is ensuring access to quality nursing for the future. Teens get hands-on experience inhealthcare Since 1997, CMH has partnered with Astoria High School and Clatsop Community College to offer a class that gives juniors and seniors from Astoria, Knappa and Warrenton the chance to explore careers in health care before they decide what to do after high school. Astoria High School juniors Tylene Townsend and Amarissa Perez are two of the 22 students enrolled in this year’s Health Occupations class. They sat down with Health Compass to share their experiences. Why did you sign up? Tylene: I knew I wanted to go into the medical field—I just didn’t quite know the direction yet. Amarissa: Kind of the same thing. I knew I wanted to go into a health career, and I figured it’s a good class to take a step into that. Has it helped you develop any more direction? T: Yeah, I think so. I job-shadowed a pediatric nurse practitioner and a labor and delivery nurse. With the labor and delivery nurse, I actually got to help deliver a baby, which was really cool, and then I was like, “Maybe I want to do this daily.” And you wouldn’t know that if you hadn’t been there. T: Exactly! A: I think I’ve narrowed my career to being a neonatal nurse. I’ve job- shadowed a midwife, a family doctor and a pediatrician. I liked them; I found them really interesting. I found some things that were really cool that I’d like to do, and some things that were like, “Naw, I don’t think I want to do that.” It helped me to know what I want to do. What has surprised you the most during the class? T: I feel like we’ve learned a lot that I wasn’t expecting to learn. The job-shadowing was such a cool experience, and I didn’t think I was going to get to do that. A: We covered a lot of little things that have opened our minds about health careers. Are you starting to look at colleges that fall in line with your health care interests? T: For sure. We’ve heard that Clatsop Community has a really great program... A: So I think that we’ll apply to that. Would you recommend the class to your peers and why? T: I think if I didn’t take this class and see how the medical field actually works, I probably would have got scared away because of all the education. It’s four more years, and if you want to go higher, you have eight more years. But because I see that it’s worth it, that makes it so much more exciting. A: People often talk about all the schooling to go into health care, but not enough people talk about all the benefits and all the cool stuff that you get to do. T: It helped a lot. A: It opens your eyes and helps you choose. It really is a good class and a good opportunity. Amarissa Perez (left) and Tylene Townsend COLUMBIAMEMORIAL.ORG SUMMER 2019 3