Cadets give a summer boost to LRMC

  • Published
  • By Spc. Todd Goodman
  • Landstuhl Regional Medical Center
LANDSTUHL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER, Germany --  Nursing school or hands-on experience in arguably the busiest military hospital in the world? A group of future officers has its cake and can eat it too, as both options were recently made available. 

For one month, eight nursing cadets and six Army Medical Department cadets came to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to hone their skills working with battle wounded servicemembers. Dubbed the Nurse Summer Training Program, it lets cadets learn via the right seat ride method, whereby they observe staff members as they start IVs, take vitals, wrap wounds and perform general duties. Eventually, however, the right seat ride is over and they are put in the driver's seat. 

"I love it here," said Andrea Papa, an ROTC Nursing cadet at the University of Vermont. "I wish it (our session) was longer. I don't want to go back to school. I want to stay here." And for good reason. Cadets get much more experience in one month at LRMC than in two years of nursing school. At least that is the sentiment that prior cadets have echoed. It's an opportunity for them to work on a medical/surgical ward, plus spend a couple of shifts visiting other departments as strictly an observer. 

"The Intensive Care Unit has been a popular choice," said Maj. Patricia Born, staff development educator and coordinator for the NSTP. "So has labor and delivery." It is the major's job to put together the schedule for the cadets and make sure they get all of their course requirements. 

"Yes, I do all of that ... and basically harass them," she said. "They are not here to play. They are here to work, and they get their share of it. Considering the worldwide nursing shortage, the NSTP is a great recruitment and retention vehicle for the Army Nurse Corps." It's an experience that allows them to see how a military hospital works and shows them, in stark contrast, the difference in patients they will see. 

"The patients you treat here are much different," said Cadet Papa. "You see sicker patients in civilian hospitals. I'm used to being in a patient's room all of the time, you know, treating geriatrics who are high risks to fall. Here, aside from the battle wounds, the patients generally are very healthy. They are young and energetic and motivated to get better and overcome their injuries."