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Concluding the second iteration of a unique program partnership between Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Emmanuel College’s Maureen Murphy Wilkens School of Nursing & Clinical Sciences, eight new health care professionals celebrated the start of their new professional chapters on June 13th.
The graduates completed a 4-week Patient Care Technician (PCT) Pipeline Program – orchestrated by BIDMC Workforce Planning and Development and instructed by Emmanuel College nursing faculty. Following their completion of the program, graduates – who are employees of BIDMC – received their certificates to start as PCTs at either BIDMC or Mount Auburn Hospital.
“We certainly appreciate this partnership. PCTs are such an important part of patient care – all your hard work has gotten you to this point – congratulations,” said Dean of the Maureen Murphy Wilkens School of Nursing & Clinical Sciences, Diane Shea, Ph.D., RN.
For the second year running, the collaborative program offering leveraged the proximity and longstanding partnership between Emmanuel College and BIDMC to teach participants in the classroom, simulation and skills laboratory, and then hands-on in the hospital. The program manager for BIDMC, Meg Mengyao Li, spoke at the graduation on June 13th to thank everyone involved who made its second year a success.
“We are so grateful to our educational partnership for hosting us and for their ongoing support and faculty guidance,” she said.
A Pipeline to Healthcare Roles
The PCT program provides participants a unique pathway into healthcare, said Assistant Professor of Nursing, Dympna O’Carroll, one of Emmanuel’s instructors of the program. O’Carroll said the program is particularly geared toward employees that are working in a healthcare facility, but not in a healthcare capacity.
She said she has seen the program boost the graduates’ confidence over time, and has given them a feeling of stability in the workforce that they can build upon.
That was the sentiment shared from this year’s graduates – some of whom spoke at the celebration. The achievement has opened a window into the healthcare workforce that they can count on for the rest of their lives.
Gio Rangel, now a PCT at Mount Auburn Hospital, said he sees the accomplishment as a personal victory. Throughout his journey, he said he’d worried that his goal of working as a healthcare professional wouldn’t pan out – but now he’s taken the first step – and is now looking toward becoming a registered nurse.
“This is thanks to persistence and mutual support, and thank you for creating a space where we could all grow,” Rangel said.
BIDMC and Emmanuel College maintain an existing partnership involving the College’s RN-to-BSN program, offering a cohort teaching model for nurses to earn their Bachelor’s Degree while working simultaneously at BIDMC. Last year, BIDMC reached out to the College to propose an extension of that partnership and launch the PCT program.
Associate Chief Nurse for Professional Development, Research & Magnet at BIDMC, Shelley Calder, DNP, RN, CEN, said it has been wonderful to watch the program grow and continue to “define it with Emmanuel.” To the graduates, Calder said starting their PCT journey is just the beginning of a great opportunity.
Emmanuel's Nursing-Driven Approach to Patient Care
Using the PCT training criteria that BIDMC provided, Emmanuel created the syllabus for the first portion of the program, during which the participants spent eight hours a day in the classroom taking full lessons, as well as working on skills and simulations in the nursing labs.
“They were practicing just as our own students do, with our full set of resources as Emmanuel College,” O’Carroll said.
The learning model offered for the PCT program is unique as well: and delivered with a nursing-driven approach. “We feel the unique emphasis on nursing-rich instruction has been very strong,” O’Carroll added. “The incumbent employees are learning directly from nurses, who they will be working side-by-side with as PCTs. This positive and proactive approach has resulted in one-hundred percent retention, with some of last year’s graduates already positioned in leadership roles.”
After two successful sessions of the program, producing 19 graduates and healthcare professionals, O’Carroll said the PCT program is something that they hope to expand upon in the future.
Dr. Shea, O’Carroll and Assistant Professor of Nursing Rebecca White will be doing a poster presentation of this program at the upcoming Sigma Theta Tau Biennial convention in Indianapolis in November.
