For 10 local women, Aug. 10 felt as though it would never get here. But when it did last week, the day was a rush of emotion and pride as they rose as the first class of registered nurses to graduate from Flathead Valley Community College.
The students, who began the intensive program in January, received their nursing pins during the Aug. 10 ceremony. The pins – one of nursing oldest traditions – symbolize the transition from student to professional.
The weight of that transition was not lost on the newly recognized RNs. Each told a story about working toward her nursing degree but life eventually getting in the way. Without having a local program, they said, it would have taken much longer to reach this point.
“We are so fortunate that we can do it here in the valley,” Kathleen Mayer said in an interview before the ceremony. “That was one of my challenges – I didn’t want to leave the valley.”
Mayer knew her nurturing nature would fit well with the nursing profession. As the oldest of 10 kids in her family, with most of them boys, she had to learn the basics of patching up the injured.
“Being the oldest girl I had to learn first aid,” she said.
Mayer already has degrees in mental health, and believes nursing is about caring for the whole patient – the mental and the physical. This sentiment echoed throughout most of the afternoon, with faculty and staff noting how important it is to realize that nursing is an art and a science.
“We believe in the health of the soul as well as the body,” Erika Decree, nursing faculty member, said in her keynote address.
The RN program at FVCC, which began in January, is the fruition of about 30 years of work. According to Nursing Program Director Myrna Ridenour, the idea for an RN program was first floated in 1982 during a time when nurses were scarce.
That program did not get the approval it needed from a body of nursing professionals, she said, and was scrapped. It did, however, lead to the development of prerequisite courses students would need to transfer to other universities and colleges.
The idea came up again during another nursing shortage in the early 1990s, but the funding wasn’t there, Ridenour said. In 2004, FVCC received a grant that got several health and science programs rolling, and in 2006, FVCC accepted its first group of practical nursing students for its LPN program.
Curriculum for the RN program was approved in July 2011, and the students started in January. There were some kinks to work out along the way, according to both the faculty and the students, but issues were quickly ironed out.
An RN degree takes at least two years, with an additional year of prerequisites often tacked on. Most of the 2012 graduating class already had their LPN qualifications, program officials said.
Liisa Lommatsch of Columbia Falls said she had been waiting for the Aug. 10 ceremony for eight months. The program was very rigorous, she said, but that is one of its biggest selling points.
“The bar was set quite high and I appreciated that,” Lommatsch said. “I thought the instructors were fantastic.”
Having the program in the valley allowed her to pursue this career, she said. Lommatsch waited until her children were grown to go back to school, and earned her LPN qualifications a year ago.
But she knew she wanted to go further in her career, and the new program came along at just the right time.
“As an RN you have so many more doors open to you – more opportunities. You can grow in many different areas a lot further than an LPN,” she said.
In a speech during the ceremony, FVCC President Jane Karas asked the new nurses to remember the history of their profession, rooted in the traditions of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, and the four Vs of success: value, voice, vigilance and vitality of relationships.
To close out the ceremony, the nurses recited the FVCC Nursing Program Pledge, which is adapted from the Florence Nightingale Pledge, the end of which states, “I will do my utmost to uphold the integrity and the high ideals of the nursing profession.”
Decree, the keynote speaker, told the group that she would not hesitate to let them care for her or her loved ones.
“You are an extraordinary group of women, and I have been honored to teach you,” Decree said.
The 2012 RN graduates are Krista Andrews of Kalispell; Joanna Crawford of Kalispell; Kathleen Lembrich of Kalispell; Liisa Lommatsch of Columbia Falls; Heidi Marcum of Whitefish; Kathleen Mayer of Kalispell; Lara McDonnell of Kalispell; Angela Nyburg of Kalispell; Stacie Pugh of Whitefish; and Christine Reid of Bigfork.