Despite the drastic nursing shortage in the nation, White Plains Hospital has retained its hiring staff mostly by training nursing students in its apprentice program. Going on its eighth year, the Richard P. Biondi Nurse Apprentice Program has graduated 61 students to date. On Friday, the hospital will recognize 22 students who completed the seven-week apprenticeship program over the summer.
“Although a nursing shortage continues nationwide in specialty areas such as the Emergency Department and the Operating Room, we are fortunate that White Plains Hospital will continue to be fully staffed with the nurses who come out of this program,” Hospital President Susan Fox said.
Hiring students through this program has helped these would-be nurses  seize opportunities to work with professionals and apply their knowledge and training directly in the field, said Program Counselor Annie Norris.
“Since these students are already in our pipeline, they are the first individuals we look to hire,” Norris said in a written statement. “The nurse managers and staff get to know their work ethic, ambition and initiatives as well as their organizational and priority setting skills during the summer.”
The five-day-a-week program allows apprentices to work in clinical areas of the hospital including pediatrics, Emergency Department, endoscopy, post-anesthesia care unit, ICU step-down, labor and delivery, maternal-child, medical-surgical, oncology and neonatal intensive care.
They’re responsible for working in supervised roles such as answering call balls, taking vital signs, assisting patients with meals, helping nurses, and sitting with patients and keeping them company. These apprentices also receive instruction from members of the nursing staff on topics including patient safety, infection control and general patient care.
“One of the greatest rewards of working with these aspiring nurses each summer is that we get to see them grow and in more cases than none, we end up seeing them working the floors of White Plains Hospital as registered nurses,” said Monica Purdy, nursing liaison for students.
Biondi, senior vice president of White Plains Hospital, has led fundraising efforts for the nurse apprentice program with Norris and Purdy taking initiative of community outreach and the screening process for new apprentices. The Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration and White Plains Hospital fund the program through grants as well.
