Clinical Achievement is the Focus as Tidewater Tech – Norfolk
Celebrates Nurse’s Week

Practical Nursing Program

By Ryan Powers
Career & Student Services

The nursing profession is said to be built on characteristics such as strength, commitment, and compassion. In actuality, it is built on much more than that. For the students and clinical instructors of our Practical Nursing program, knowledge, experience, team work and perseverance are all attributes that are just as important in this profession. In light of this, we embraced the opportunity to recognize and honor the students and clinical instructors who exemplify these qualities during National Nurse’s Week May 6th – 12th, 2006.

The Practical Nursing program is an intensive course of study, which requires instructors to be prepared and knowledgeable and students to be ready to absorb vast amounts of information. In addition, students must be prepared to respond to the rigors of demanding clinical rotations, where they receive important hands-on experience in real medical and health profession environments. The purpose of our Nurse’s Week assembly was to honor those students who combined their knowledge of the course work with their hands-on clinical opportunities in outstanding fashion. Furthermore, we recognized and honored those clinical instructors who lead by example and offer our students the insight and experience they have gained with their dedication to teaching.

Each assembly, one for the day and one for the night classes, brought our entire Practical Nursing students into two conjoining rooms for the presentations. The day students honored for their distinguished clinical work were as follows: Fasiska Pepper, Fontella Holley, Jacqueline Burns, Raymond Smith, and Janelle Story. Each student was recognized by our Health Services Coordinator and given a Certificate of Achievement. In addition, Ms. Diana Albert was honored as an outstanding clinical instructor during the day assembly. While mostly surprised and flattered, she gave thanks to all those that were recognizing her work and dedication.

We again gathered in the early evening hours to honor our night students and instructors. The night students that were recognized for their work were: Lewis Bush, Mariam Wishup, Bridgette Brown, Shelita Gregory, and Janet Odai. Furthermore, Lt. Denetra Hampton was honored as an outstanding clinical instructor during our night ceremony. Lt. Hampton was recently named “Nurse of the Quarter” at Portsmouth Naval Hospital and delivered impassioned words of encouragement to our students for their hard work and perseverance.

Finally, our own Practical Nursing Clinical Liaison, Ms. Janice Walter, was honored for her tireless work in securing clinical locations and preparing students for their demanding rotations. We would like to take this opportunity to again congratulate all of those students and instructors who worked so hard for the recognition of their efforts. We hope that plenty of these assemblies will be in our future and that the recognition given to all those students and instructors will encourage others to emulate the winning attributes that these honorees embody.