WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Amidst the pandemic and at a time when healthcare workers are in high demand, nursing students at Jefferson Community College are preparing to join the medical field.
“I’ve always just liked helping people and I wanted to give back to the community,” Breanna Knapp said.
Knapp is one of 70 nursing students at JCC about to embark on a journey to become a registered nurse.
A wave of maroon scrubs washed into Sturtz Theater at JCC Thursday night.
“This is the beginning of their nursing journey,” nursing department interim chair Marie Hess said.
The tide of new health care workers turning white as they donned their lab coats, a symbolic welcome to the profession.
“It’s important for us to share with them that we are very invested in their education and that we very much want them to be part of our profession,” Hess said.
It’s a critical time for nurses. Not only are we facing a global pandemic, but a statewide vaccine mandate is exacerbating a long-running nursing shortage.
“It’s probably in all my years of nursing, it’s the worse now than I have ever seen it,” Hess said.
For these students, they want to jump in on the front lines and see COVID-19 as a challenge to rise to.N
“I think it inspired me to keep pushing, keep going forward, and be supportive for my classmates,” Calie Fulmer said.
Some say it comes with the job.
“I think with all nurses we just know how to roll with the punches and just go with the flow,” Knapp said. “We always have and we always will.”
Now these 70 students, dressed in white, will begin their two-year journey to become an RN.
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