Joey Wahler (Host): It's a rewarding way to be a significant part of the healthcare industry, so we're discussing preparing for a nursing career. Our guest, Vickie Fieler , Dean at the St. Joseph's School of Nursing. This is Wellness First from St. Joseph's School of Nursing. Thanks for joining us. I'm Joey Wahler. Hi there, Vickie. Welcome.

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: Thank you. Welcome to you too.

Host: Thanks so much. We appreciate the time. So, tell us first, if you would, please, a little bit about your background and what led you to the healthcare industry, to wanting to become a nurse and to your current role as the Dean of the St. Joseph's School of Nursing.

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: I've been in Nursing a long time. I actually started way back at Portsmouth Hospital, working as a candy striper and then a nursing assistant. But I decided to go to nursing school. I went to nursing school in Boston at Northeastern University. Then I went to Boston University for my master's and finally went to the University of Rochester, and New York for my PhD.

I came to St. Joe's, though, after working in multiple positions as manager or director of different departments, mainly worked in Oncology and ICU. But when I saw a position available at St. Joe's that was in professional education, I kind of jumped at that. And then about two years later, the position of dean at the school opened up, and I switched over to the school, and I've been here about 11 years now.

Host: That's great. What do you think it was initially that drew you to the profession?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: I think like most people, you have a lot of idealistic ideas about wanting to help people and to return some work to the community and to feel like you're a part of the community. It was really a driving sense ever since I was like in about second grade, wanting to be a nurse and wanting to participate in healthcare in some sort of format. For a while when I was in high school, I kind of toyed back and forth about whether to go into Nursing or to try and go into Medicine.

But once I started working in hospitals as a candy striper and then as a nurse's aide, I really felt that nurses were the ones who were caring for patients. And that they were the ones who were at the bedside, who were physically interacting with patients and giving the patients the emotional support and the connection that they needed. And so, that's where I decided I wanted to be. And that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Host: That's great. And you mentioned, Vickie , the term candy striper for those that may not know what that is, please explain.

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: A candy striper, it's like a volunteer position. And usually, you can start working as a candy striper when you're like in junior high, or maybe your first year of high school. And so, you go to the hospital for a couple hours a week, and you wear a little red and white striped uniform, which is why they call them candy stripers. And you do various jobs, such as sometimes you're delivering the flowers, sometimes you're sitting at the front desk and helping direct visitors to where they need to go. So, it's kind of a pre-employment introduction to what goes on in a hospital.

Host: So, how would you say the St. Joseph's School of Nursing prepares its students for the many challenges they'll face in the modern healthcare environment? How would you sum up what the approach is there?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: I think we're a little unique at St. Joseph's School of Nursing. We really live the mission of the hospital and of the school. So, we try to make sure that when we're looking at prospective students, that we're including people from all walks of life, all races, all backgrounds. We want to make sure that anyone has the opportunity to participate in the healthcare field, that you don't have to have straight A's, you don't have to be young, you don't have to fit any particular mold. So, we try to look at every student as possibility of becoming a nurse or growing and becoming nurse practitioner or going into nursing administration, nursing education.

So, we're looking at students as sort of the whole range of what's people are in the community and we really want our nursing workforce to mirror the community. But it is a rigorous process. The education for nursing is very tough. It does require a big commitment from the student both in time and effort. And so, we're looking to match the perspective students' abilities with what we know the rigor of the curriculum is. But we try and make sure every student is successful and that every student has a chance at making it through the program and becoming a registered nurse.

Host: And speaking of which, what would you say are some of the unique programs or initiatives that the St. Joseph's School of Nursing offers that maybe set it apart from some other nursing schools?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: We have admissions every semester. So, we admit students three times a year, not just in the fall semester. We offer both day and evening programs. And as much as possible, we try to flex our ability to meet student needs at the time. We offer both a program for students who've never been in nursing before, and we also offer an LPN to RN program. So if somebody's practicing as an LPN, to finish and get your RN is a one-year process.

In addition, since COVID, we've also opened multiple training programs. So, we're offering nursing assistant training, medical assistant training, phlebotomy training. And in January, we're going to be opening a brand new paramedic training program.

Host: When you mention those different options, and it sounds like there are many of them, fortunately, how do you help someone just starting out decide what direction they want to go in nursing?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: Often what we're thinking about is if the person really isn't sure if healthcare is the field for them or not, they might want to go through one of the training programs. They're inexpensive, and they're pretty short, and you can get immediate employment as a nursing assistant or a medical assistant, phlebotomist. And so, those give you the opportunity to practice in the field for a few months, six months, a year, and give yourself time to decide if this is the direction you really want to go in. Working on an associate degree, whether you're coming to St. Joe's, or one of the community colleges, or one of the universities, can be an expensive prospect. We're one of the less expensive programs, and the two-year program comes in to just about $30,000 for two years. Bigger universities, the prices are higher. If you're not sure that you want to be a nurse and that this is the direction you want to go in, you might want to try a training program and get your feet wet first.

Host: So even prior to that, how would you say someone interested in starting a nursing program prepare going in? What should they be ready for?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: I think it's just thinking through life choices and making room in your life for that education period. Most of our students are working at least part time, if not full time. Many of our students have families, we have a lot of single mothers. So, it's looking at how do you balance school with the rest of your life. You need to plan ahead in order to make room for school. In addition to the actual hours that you're in school, you also have to think about time for study and time for homework, time for writing papers. If you're working full time or you've got little kids at home, you need to figure out a balance of have I saved enough money that it's not going to be a financial strain? Do I have family, neighbors, friends that can help out so that you can have that time to study when you're actually not in class? Can your employer be flexible about your work hours? If you need to be at class at a certain time, is your employer flexible about when you come and when you leave work so that you can get to school?

Host: Good advice, indeed. How about the application process? What can someone do to improve their application to a nursing program? Or what if they're not accepted the first time they apply? What should they do?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: The application process for nursing school usually requires that you take some preliminary testing. For St. Joseph's School of Nursing, we require that applicants take the TEAS exam, that's T-E-A-S. Other schools might require the TEAS or might require a test called the HESI exam. I encourage people to think about taking it really early. Take the exam maybe four to six months before you're ready to apply, because we have a minimum score that we require. And we will use the most recent test that you've taken. So if you didn't score well enough, give yourself enough time to retake the test to do some studying and retake the test to get a better score. This test is good for a year. You can take it up to a year before you apply to the program. But we do have some students that don't take it until a couple weeks before the application deadline. And then if they don't get a great score on the exam, they may not make the cut to get accepted into the program.

The other thing for people to think about is if you have, we look at your previous grades. So, we look at grade point average of whether it was high school or previous college. And if at some point in time you don't have a grade point average, for example, many people graduate from high school and they have like a C average or even less than a C average, in order for us to know whether you'd be a good candidate for the nursing school, take one or two college courses, even if it's just English 101, Math 101, Anatomy and Physiology, show us that you can do the work or give sort of low high school scores if we can see that somebody is able to meet college level work.

So if you've got a history of either college or high school grade point averages that are lower, think about taking, one or two courses, you can take them online, you can take them at any community college, and just be able to show us that you can do the work. And we will generally accept that. So, we will be forgiving of a low high school average if we know that you can do college level work.

Host: Gotcha. I'm sure some will be glad to hear that. A couple of other things. Switching gears a little bit, Vickie, how about any success stories or notable achievements from the school's alumni that highlight the impact of your programs that you can share?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: We love hearing back from our alumni. Many of our alumni are very successful. So, even though you might be starting with an Associate Degree in Nursing, many of our alumni go back and get their Bachelor's degree, their Master's degree, and some go back and get their Doctorate of Nursing Practice. So, we have graduates from St. Joseph's School of Nursing who are nursing administrators at the national level. We have quite a few that come back to St. Joe's and work at St. Joe's as a nurse manager or a Nursing Director. We have graduates that go on to become nurse practitioners and are working out in the field in the physician offices. So, your entry level into an Associate Degree of Nursing really opens up the door for you to go anywhere you want and you can be as successful as you want in a career of nursing.

And of course, we also highly value the people who stay at the bedside. So, it's not necessary that you have to keep going on for bigger degrees and moving on in that direction, that people who stay at the bedside and provide expert, safe patient care are extremely valuable and can have very rewarding careers, and career pathways at the bedside.

Host: Finally, in summary here, what advice would you give to prospective nursing students considering a career in healthcare? It really helps to love it, doesn't it, Vickie ?

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: I think my strongest advice is that this is a gateway to many different types of professions. And so, once you go through a training program or become an RN, the doors are open to almost any type of profession that you want to do. So certainly, you can move forward in administration, you can become an educator and go into academics. But you could also go into home care, you work in intensive care units, you can work in operating rooms. We have nurses that work in tumor registries. We have nurses that work in the insurance industry. So, almost any direction that you want to go in, you can combine with nursing. And you can switch directions pretty easily. So, you might have been a staff nurse working on a medical surgical unit for years and decide you want to try doing OB Nursing, or you want to move to the ICU, or you want to move outside the hospital and work in an insurance setting. Drug companies hire nurses both as salespersons and also as producers of patient education and writing. So, there's just a million different directions that you can go in once you make that first step.

And the other advice I would give to people is that it doesn't become oversaturated. It's a career that anywhere you move, anywhere you go, you can find a nursing position that's open. And so, it creates a great deal of flexibility for yourself, anywhere you want to go, you could work in Hawaii, you can work internationally. So, it's really a profession that opens doors for you everywhere.

Host: Well, you've certainly painted a very optimistic and welcome picture, nurses, of course, among some of the more underappreciated heroes in the workforce oftentimes. Folks, we trust you're now more familiar with a career in nursing. Vickie Fieler, keep up your great work. And thanks so much again.

Vickie Fieler, PhD, RN: Thank you so much. I appreciated talking with you.

Host: Same here. And for more information, please do visit sjson.edu/apply. If you found this podcast helpful, please do share it on your social media. I'm Joey Wahler. And thanks again for being part of Wellness First from St. Joseph School of Nursing.