Clinical Nurse Transition Program Sets Nurses ahead
William Beaumont Army Medical Center hosted a graduating ceremony for Class 15-152 of the Brig. Gen. Anna Mae Hays Clinical Nurses Transition Program Dec. 8.
The six-month-long program allows new nurses to gain experience as a surgical-medical nurse while working alongside experienced nurses, who mentor the new nurses in hands-on procedures.
"The CNTP is a program for new nurses who have already graduated from a nursing program to get a good foundation before working on their own," said 2nd Lt. Lizamara C. Bedolla, a graduate of CNTP. "It’s like a residency program for doctors."
Throughout the program, nurses learned advanced nursing topics such as pain management, ethical decisions, physiology-type techniques and critical-thinking skills.
"It advances their professional development and helps them understand 'I need to keep educating myself if I want to stay current in practice,'" said Dr. Thomas H. Miller, CNTP director. "They’re all brand new 2nd lieutenants that have finished nursing school."
The program provides opportunities for new nurses to gain hands-on experience and repetitive practice, Miller said.
Other projects include an evidence-based practice project which helps nurses examine research and analyze whether new practices should be implemented at WBAMC.
"We just don’t do things the old-fashioned way. We need to keep looking at the future because there are always new ideas," Miller said.
The nurses received the opportunity to work as head nurses with preceptors (experienced nurses), said 2nd Lt. Jessica S. Webster, a CNTP graduate. The program educated students on matters unfamiliar and guided them so they could work independently.
Although the nurses will continue to be mentored throughout their careers, the goal of the program is to add experience to the knowledge the nurses already possess from school so they can work with confidence and independence once they get started.
"When you walk into a room you immediately know what to go to and what the patient needs first because you get so well skilled," Miller said.
"I think it’s a really good program," Bedolla said. "(CNTP) allows you that time you need to get a foundation to build on the skills you learned at nursing school and to work alongside somebody to give you that confidence to work on your own."