Collapsed lungs, broken bones and kidney and liver failure +â-óGé¼" Laura Dearmond has seen it all.
Suited in her white scrub shirt, navy pants and white leather shoes, the Ball State University senior works in management and critical care clinicals at Ball Memorial Hospital this semester.
"It's a chance to get to see a whole range of areas in nursing because when you get a job, you're most likely working in a specific area," Dearmond said.
Dearmond is one of more than 300 students involved in Ball State's baccalaureate nursing program +â-óGé¼" one of three major collaborative student programs between Ball State's College of Applied Sciences and Technology and Ball Memorial Hospital.
Based on an accreditation site visit last month and a program exit survey report, Ball State's School of Nursing ranks as one of the top schools in the nation on the National Council Licensing Examination for Registered Nurses pass rate. The report was conducted by the Commission on Collegiate Education, said Linda Siktberg, director of the School of Nursing.
Siktberg said the students' experiences at Ball Memorial Hospital give them a chance to apply their nursing knowledge from the university to the clinical area. Students perform several skills including patient assessments, administering medications and monitoring blood pressure and other vital signs.
"There's so many different things you can do, there's no way you can get sick of your job," Dearmond said.
Angie Koger, employment specialist at Cardinal Health System, said the university's four-year degree in nursing, which requires clinical lab experience, opens up doors for students to positions in management and education.
"It helps [students] know what they like and don't like," Koger said. "When they are in clinicals, it gives them an idea of what life is like as a nurse."
Koger said students' work in the clinicals benefits the hospital by providing nurses with new perspectives on their practices as well as opportunities to teach.
"When [students] get that going and ask different questions, it makes our nurses stop and think, 'Why do we do it that way?'" Koger said.
EXERCISE SCIENCE
Ball State graduate student George Newell wouldn't exactly call juggling classes, his thesis project, work in the university's exercise testing lab and 20 hours a week at Ball Memorial Hospital easy.
But it is the stepping stone on a career path in cardiac rehabilitation - an opportunity made possible through a second partnership between Ball State and Ball Memorial Hospital.
Newell, a second-year graduate student, is one of six students involved with the partnership between Ball State's exercise science program and the hospital's rehabilitation services. Newell helps outpatients who are recovering from heart attacks, coronary artery bypass and open heart surgery.
"On average, any day we go into the hospital, we see about 50 patients a day regardless of what rotation we're doing," Newell said.
The six graduate students work between three and four hours a day as exercise supervisors.
"As a graduate assistant, your full-time work week is 20 hours a week, so that's pretty much a full assignment for them because they're still students here taking classes," Leonard Kaminsky, director of the program, said.
The students receive free tuition, in addition to getting paid.
A majority of Newell's supervisors are graduates of Ball State, he said.
"I've enjoyed working with patients and having a feeling of actually helping them through the process - helping people feel better in general and feeling like I'm making a difference," Newell said.
Katrina Riggin, coordinator of outpatient cardiac rehabilitation at the hospital, served as a graduate assistant under Kaminsky before assuming her current position eight years ago.
Riggin said students' involvement at Ball Memorial Hospital benefits the hospital in that they help with daily direct patient care, thus providing the facility with better staffing ratios.
"It really is not only for me but for all graduate assistants who have had the opportunity to come to Ball to work with direct patient care; it's just such an essential part of the experience," Riggin said.
DIETETIC TECHNOLOGY
Ball State's dietetic technology program, which is also in a partnership with Ball Memorial Hospital, will end after next spring due to both a lack of interest by students and awaited educational changes from the American Dietetic Association, said Kim Pike, instructor of family and consumer sciences.
The association is in the process of implementing changes to the educational approaches of dietetic programs throughout the country, Pike said.
"In the past years, there have been as many as 10 to 15 in any given class, but over the years, it's just been dwindling down," Pike said.
Ball State student Sharon Brockey is currently enrolled in the university's two-year dietetic technology program. Brockey will be the last student to graduate with a dietetic technology associate degree, she said.
At the hospital, the students spend about three hours a week assisting registered dieticians with patient assessment and collecting data for working with patients' medical charts.
"They see a lot more hands-on experience that they typically wouldn't gain in the classroom," Pike said.
Last spring, Brockey worked about 43 hours at Ball Memorial Hospital performing nutritional assessments for patients. After December, she will have completed a total of 450 hours in required hands-on experience and plans to work for food service in community schools.
"Whenever I have time and I'm awake, I'm trying to do my hours," Brockey said. "That gives you a chance to know what you want to do when you graduate."
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