BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
North Florida Technical College nursing instructors Lynn Dickinson and Becky McCord demand excellence from their students, and that’s what they’re getting. The proof is in student performance on the state’s licensure exam and recognition for NFTC as one of the top practical-nursing schools in the state.
“We’re pretty excited about what we do here and how we push ourselves and push our students,” said Dickinson, who is the primary classroom instructor.
The school had two practical-nursing classes experience a 100-percent pass rate from students taking what is known as the NCLEX (National Counsel Licensure Examination). The school’s most recent nursing-assistant class also experienced a 100-percent pass rate on the state exam for that profession.
Such success has led to the school’s practical-nursing program being ranked as the sixth-best program in the state by NursingProcess.org. Florida has a total of 160 such programs.
“We knew that we had a great program, but to be recognized like that? We were pretty excited,” Dickinson said. “Sixth best in the state — right here in Starke.”
The NFTC program ranks behind New Port Richey’s Pasco-Hernando State College, Cape Coral Technical College, Davie’s McFatter Technical College, Ocala’s Marion Technical College and St. Augustine’s First Coast Technical College.
Rounding out the top 10 are Jacksonville’s Jersey College, St. Petersburg’s Galen College of Nursing, West Palm Beach’s Academy for Nursing and Health Occupations and Lakeland’s Traviss Technical College.
High expectations, high-quality nurses
“I’ve seen my fair share of terrible nurses,” said McCord, who is the nursing program manager. “It is my hope to replace terrible nurses with awesome nurses.
She and Dickinson go about that by demanding excellence from their students. For example, assignments turned in late aren’t accepted. As Dickson said, “In the clinical setting, giving a medication late is not acceptable.”
“If they compromise on a policy or don’t turn something in right or have a substandard performance on a test, then they’re going to jeopardize patient care,” Dickinson said. “We will not allow it. We demand that they be basically almost perfect because that’s what they need to be. Patients’ lives are at stake in the real world.”
The clinical sites students work at have copies of the program’s policies-and-procedures manual.
“They let us know if there’s any deviation,” Dickinson said.
Those clinical sites seem to be impressed with the NFTC students. Dickinson said many of those facilities offer students jobs before they graduate.
CareerOneSource projected that 41,780 would be employed as practical nurses in Florida in 2020. The projection for 2030 is 46,530.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for practical nurses in Florida is $25.86 per hour or $53,780 per year.
In other words, Dickinson, who has a master’s degree, and McCord, who has a bachelor’s degree, are seeing their students earn diplomas and go on to make more money than they do as teachers.
“That’s OK. This is what we signed up to do,” Dickinson said. “We’re not in it for the money.”
What they’re in it for is to have a greater impact than they could working as nurses. Dickinson said she and McCord could work at a healthcare facility and care for maybe 6-10 patients a day, but by teaching students, they are helping to care for an even greater number of patients.
“I can make the biggest impact this way,” McCord said.
Dickinson said, “We need people in the workforce. We can effect more change by educating the masses and putting them out there. In effect, instead of taking care of 10 patients a day at a facility, we’re taking care of thousands a day.”
Number of students is up at NFTC
McCord goes to nursing conferences every year and hears how enrollment is down at various schools’ nursing programs. She saw the enrollment in her own program decline last year.
This year, though, NFTC has a total of 26 students in its two practical-nursing classes. McCord said she had the chairman of a program at a college ask her how NFTC was drawing a number of students that other programs weren’t.
One reason is word of mouth, McCord said. Students are graduating from the NFTC program and telling friends about their positive experiences.
“I have a student who’s coming all the way from Interlachen because her friend just graduated from our program,” McCord said. “I have some coming from Hawthorne because their friend just graduated from here.”
This year’s classes also consist of students from Gainesville, Cross City, Trenton and the southside of Jacksonville.
Tamekea Blackmon, a student in the full-time practical-nursing program, drives from Gainesville.
“I heard good things about the program in Starke,” said Blackmon, whose sister, Quanesia Debose, is a student in the part-time practical-nursing program.
Dickinson said, “I think the word of mouth is very powerful. We are becoming a very reputable nursing school.”
Another reason that could be positively impacting enrollment is that students are more than just bodies occupying seats in a classroom.
“We get to know them more than at bigger colleges,” McCord said. “For example, we know when our students are having hardships. We know when they are going through rough patches in their lives.”
Anytime a student wants to talk to McCord or Dickinson, the instructors are there for them.
“We’re always basically on call for them,” Dickinson said.
McCord said, “Our students call us after hours. We don’t have just office hours. We’ll take those calls on Saturdays and Sundays. It doesn’t matter. We’re always available to them.”
Yet the instructors wanted to do even more for their students. They created four study rooms with various types of furniture so that students can sit at a desk or study while lounging on a couch or a beanbag chair.
Two of the rooms are themed: one features a safari motif and the other that of a mountain lodge.
McCord said, “It makes them feel like they’re at their home.”
Blackmon likes the safari-themed room the most and said her preference is to sit at a desk. She said her sister, though, is a beanbag-chair person.
“The small study rooms are amazing,” Blackmon said.
Dickinson said, “There are studies that show if you put a kid in a different environment for learning, often it will increase their engagement, and they feel more comfortable than in a classic classroom.”
The instructors also created a kind of mini-dining hall, which includes a refrigerator and several microwave ovens.
“They love it,” Dickinson said. “Some actually choose this to study in.”
Donations helped the instructors furnish the study rooms and dining area, but they also dipped into their own pockets to make it happen.
“We’ll do what we need to do for these people,” Dickinson said. “We’re going to do it. It’s going to happen.”
It would be hard for Dickinson and McCord to not go above and beyond for their students. They look at it as their duty.
“We’re nurses,” Dickinson said. “We love people. We care about people.”
NFTC nursing info
North Florida Technical College offers full-time and part-time practical nursing programs. The full-time program is 10.5 months in duration (8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays and 7 a.m.-5 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays), while the part-time program is 18 months in duration (7 a.m.-5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays).
Besides Dickinson and McCord, the program utilizes five part-time registered nurses for supervision of clinical activities and to instruct skills in simulation labs.
Local health departments, long-term care facilities and University of Florida physician clinics serve as clinical-rotation sites.
New this year has been the opportunity for students to work alongside nurses in Bradford County schools.
“We’re allowing them the opportunity to have pediatric experience, which is very cool,” Dickinson said.
The program features two nursing-skills labs with mannequins. A high-fidelity mannequin is used for nursing-skills checkoffs and vital-signs checkoffs.
Various numbers associated with blood pressure, pulse rate and respiration rate can be programmed into the mannequin by McCord. Students should come up with those numbers when they check the mannequin’s vital signs.
High-fidelity mannequin aside, the NFTC program doesn’t have, in Dickinson’s words, the “flashiest equipment.” However, the program produces successful students, and that’s the bottom line.
“Clearly, the latest-and-greatest and most-expensive buildings and equipment are not the key to the success of nursing education,” Dickinson said.
McCord said, “Building relationships is (the key) — being available for your students and not making them feel like a number.”
“That’s what we can do here,” Dickinson said.
For more information on the NFTC practical-nursing program, visit the school at 609 N. Orange St., call 904-966-6764 or visit NFTC.edu.
