Cadets to hone nursing skills

By Bob Reinert, MAMC Public Affairs

Known more as a time to rest, relax and recharge the batteries, summer can also be a season to grow and learn new skills.

The 25 ROTC cadets who will pass through this year’s Nurse Summer Training Program at Madigan Army Medical Center are examples of the latter, improving their clinical skills and becoming more familiar with the Army Nurse Corps while some of their peers are lounging on the beach at home.

Five cadets came through the NSTP at Madigan in June, to be followed by two more groups of 10 apiece. They all shadow Army nurses or “preceptors.”

“The preceptors are allowing them to dive in and train,” said Lt. Col. Leila Brown, the ROTC project coordinator for the NSTP at Madigan. “They’re working under a nurse’s license, and (the nurses are) right there with them, but they’re not afraid to put them out there and say, ‘OK, we’re going to learn how to do this.’”

Most often, cadets go through the NSTP after attending the Leadership Development and Assessment Course on Fort Lewis during the summer between their junior and senior years of college.

“It’s very fast paced,” Brown said of the three- to four-week NSTP. “They have to do 120 clinical hours. They also are required to do one individual project.”

According to Kim Idland, Madigan’s clinical nurse coordinator, the program puts the cadets well ahead of their nursing school peers.

“They’re really coming out of this program with a lot of clinical experience,” Idland said. “We really make a jack-of-all-trades registered nurse in the military, and you don’t see that out in the civilian world.”

One morning in mid June, Cadet Deserae Stickney of Redding, Calif., a student at Azusa Pacific University, was shadowing Capt. Leigh Tofte of Madigan’s Emergency Department.

“It’s good to have a nurse to follow and then just do whatever they’re doing and just getting more hands on,” Stickney said. “I’ve done a lot more skills and all of that, way more than I did at school.”

Tofte said the experience was good for her and Stickney.

“Having a nursing student with me keeps me sharp,” Tofte said. “It’s fun to have somebody who’s learning and excited to try new things. It’s a good thing for everybody.”

Idland, who went through ROTC in 1992, said some colleges and universities now offer course credit for the NSTP. She noted that the program can be rather demanding.

“These cadets have never done 12-hour night shifts before, let alone three in a row,” Idland said. “It gives them a really good taste of what’s going to face them.”

Brown said the cadets return to their colleges and universities with more confidence and a new set of friends.

“It’s a springboard for them,” Brown said. “It’s kind of like they’re launched. They came as strangers, and they’ll leave as best friends.”

“They’re meeting their peers of tomorrow,” Idland added. “This is the first time they get to see a fellowship among Army Nurse Corps officers.”

And those officers often have a lasting impact on the young cadets.

“I got a good, broad experience of all the different basic nursing skills,” said Cadet Jacqueline Cordova, a San Jose, Calif., resident who attends the University of San Francisco.

“Nurses really try and get students to come in and do things. I feel a lot more comfortable and a lot more confident in my skills.”

Bob Reinert is editor of the Mountaineer, the Madigan Army Medical Center newspaper.