Cape May County Vocational-Technical School District honored Shore Medical Center for providing clinical opportunities for practical nursing students.
Cape May County Technical School District honored Shore Medical Center as its 2020 Business Partner of the Year.
The award is given annually to a county vocational-technical school business partner for outstanding contributions to career and technical education. Business partners play a variety of roles, including serving on county vocational technical school program advisory boards, offering opportunities for students to gain valuable work experience, donating equipment, or serving as mentors and role models for students.
“In 2020, our practical nursing program conducted its 58th Pinning Ceremony celebrating our nursing students’ achievements, and Shore Medical Center stands at the forefront of our story,” said Superintendent Dr. Nancy M. Hudanich.
During the rigorous 11-month program, practical nursing students are provided educational opportunities through sessions conducted by Shore Medical, including a timely educational session on COVID vaccine development.
In working to gain clinical experiences, practical nursing students participated in a flu clinic opportunity within weeks of the program’s start.
“Shore Medical Center provides our students with clinical experience on site, during which the students administer flu shots to contribute the health and wellness of Shore’s staff and volunteers,” Hudanich said.
As the year progresses, practical nursing students work in clinical rotations in the medical center, across the many units within the hospital. For example,in obstetrics/gynecology rotations, students are involved in everything from patient care to delivery-room experiences. Students also complete medical/surgical clinical experiences at Shore Medical, with experiences in patient care from oncology to geriatrics to dialysis and more.
With multiple days of clinicals, the students may even find themselves one-on-one with Shore staff in unique medical experiences such as the intensive care unit, emergency department endoscopy suite and the operating room.
The contributions of Shore Medical Center do not end with graduation.
“Our practical nursing program affords our students the opportunity to transition to college and move across a range of medical career pathways which often leads them back to Shore for employment,” Hudanich said.
Shore Medical Center in Somers Point also began hiring practical nurses directly from the program in healthcare positions and has coordinated with Cape May Technical School District’s to hire alumni from the school.
