BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center is fighting the nursing shortage by partnering with Niagara University to help secure the next generation of healthcare workers.
The partnership is creating a paid career pathway program which some students say is allowing them to get hands-on medical experience.
“A lot of the stuff I’ve learned I haven’t done in clinical before like IV’s, pumps, a lot of nurses were iffy with that,” Mackenzie Fassett, a nursing student at Niagara University. “But here they pushed us and it’s like thank you because this is what I’ve been wanting to do and I’m going to go into nursing.”
The program is open to more than a dozen students.
The CEO of the Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, Joseph Ruffolo, sees this as a promising start.
“Over the next ten years, it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Ruffolo says. “Projecting in Western New York and Erie County as much as that 32 percent shortage in nursing when you mirror that with nurses available versus the aging population within our market. Again this internship is critically important.”
The program will also allow several fields of study that include human resources, communication, and accounting.
“This internship affords opportunities to continue to upskill the nursing student so that they receive the clinical training through our academic program,” Dr. Chris Verni, Dean of the College of Nursing at Niagara University. “And then they transition to places like Niagara Falls Memorial and prepare students for exams that are required for nurses to practice.”
Click here to apply if you’re a student, and who’s interested in studying in the medical field.
