AdventHealth Palm Coast partners with Jacksonville University for nursing mentor program

When AdventHealth Palm Coast nurse Aimelys Berrios was a nursing student, she decided to work in a hospital as a nurse tech to gain hands-on experience.

Now, Berrios is a nurse mentor in the hospital’s new Dedicated Education Unit in partnership with Jacksonville University’s accelerated nursing degree program.

The DEU pairs one nurse, known as a preceptor, with one student from JU’s Palm Coast campus. The students work an entire 12-hour hospital shift once a week with their preceptors, and they stay with the same nurse throughout the year-long program.

“This is a big difference from traditional programs,” said Mary Brady, the chief nursing officer of AdventHealth Palm Coast. “They come in and actually work a full shift. They have that same preceptor week after week after week, and they go from initially shadowing that preceptor to carrying a full caseload of patients with the preceptor overseeing them.”

It's a step forward from the traditional training program, Brady said, in which students come in for shorter periods of time, and the training focuses on specific skills.

“They don't get the whole experience of what it's like to be that nurse for an entire shift,” Brady said.

Berrios can see the difference from when she was a nursing student, even with her nurse tech experience.

“This is a great way for them to see time management and how things are done throughout a 12-hour shift versus just a few hours on the floor, like when I was a nursing student,” she said.

When something unexpected comes up, the student learns how to handle it, Berrios said.

“They actually follow my patients and what is happening with them, what things they can look out for,” Berrios said. “And then also be there when the doctors (are making rounds) and actually listen in and figure out what the plan of care is for the patient.”

JU nursing student Erika Bartram has been working with AdventHealth Palm Coast nurse Dawn Evans for about five weeks now.

Bartram said when she was entering the program, she didn’t know she’d be partnered with one nurse for the entire program.

“It's been really wonderful to have that same person every single week with her learning what my competencies are and growing those skills alongside her,” Bartram said. “I’ve really enjoyed every single week that I’ve gotten to come here.”

Jacksonville University started the accelerated nursing program in 2021 in response to the nationwide nursing shortage accentuated by the pandemic.

It's been really wonderful to have that same person every single week with her learning what my competencies are and growing those skills alongside her.” — ERIKA BARTRAM, JU nursing student

The program expanded to Palm Coast in January of this year with 10 students. All of the students in the accelerated program are required to have a bachelor’s degree as well as complete prerequisite courses in microbiology, anatomy, physiology, chemistry and statistics.

Bartram has a background in child psychology and worked in a children’s hospital for four and half years.

“This is my second degree,” she said. “There's obviously been a really big attrition in nursing fields through the pandemic. And I saw that firsthand. I think it’s a really important time to go into nursing. So, I felt the need to change careers.”

Brady said the DEU is already popular with the students as well as their mentors.

“I talked to quite a few of the students, and they were just glowing. They’re loving it,” Brady said. “The preceptors are really enjoying it because they typically just get a student for a few hours and check their work. But in this case, they feel like they're really growing that next generation that's coming in.”

Bartram said the hands-on experience is giving her the confidence that she will be ready to be a full-time nurse when she graduates in a few short months.

“Accelerated programs, I think, are becoming more available,” she said. “I think it's really, wonderful to be able to put our nurses into the workforce faster, but to be able to give them enough skills and experience to safely put them into the work force faster. I'm really fortunate to be able to join a program that has kind of figured out a way to give us both classroom experience and clinical skills quickly to be able to fill the need for nurses in the local area.”

Brady said AdventHealth is in better shape with its nursing staff than some hospitals in other parts of the country.

“We currently have no agency nurses working for us, so we are doing well with our hiring,” she said.

The new AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway hospital, which is slated to open in early August, is almost fully staffed, Brady said. With all of the preceptors staying at the current hospital, there are no plans to expand the DEU to the Parkway hospital.

“But there’s no reason we can’t do it at Parkway,” she said.

The graduates of the program will have a head start when they join the workforce, Brady said.

“They're getting that great benefit of critical thinking, prioritizing, organizing their days. And that's something that we spend 12 weeks training when we get a new grad nurse on the floor,” Brady said. “But this group of nurses will have such an advantage, because they're getting this as part of the DEU, so it is a fabulous program.”