Nursing Program Ranks in Top 10

and healthcare needs as well as different working environments gives you an opportunity to help others and at the same time develop as a person and a more culturally competent healthcare provider,” said Stine.

His Spring Hill training also helped him care for COVID skeptics. “One of the biggest things that a Jesuit education taught me was to be able to understand somebody that wasn’t me, wasn’t my background, wasn’t my culture or my ethnicity or my race,” Stine said. “Having an open mind and an open heart like that really helped me grow to be able to serve my patients better.”

Taylor Fontenelle, a junior nursing student at Spring Hill, is also learning how to deal effectively and respectfully with patients who distrust medical advice. It doesn’t help that COVID has made communication itself more difficult.

“The masks and especially the respirators make it so hard to speak clearly, especially if you have elderly patients or people who are hearing-impaired,” she said. “It’s really, really hard for them to understand. It’s even hard for me to understand my fellow students.”

Fontenelle is from Spanish Fort, Alabama, just across Mobile Bay, and plays on the Spring Hill volleyball team. “Talking to patients and getting to know them and where they come from is my favorite part,” she said.

She’s sure she’s found her calling. “You are making a difference in these people’s lives. They’re so grateful to have us there.”

Stine and Martin-Mercer said they felt the same. “I got into the profession to help people,” MartinMercer said. “It’s servant leadership, being a servant to the people."

Even though she has trouble getting masks to fit well when she has a patient who is COVID positive, “I will put on two or three masks and still go in that room. I always sacrifice myself to take care of them. Because if not me, then who?”

NURSING PROGRAM RANKS AMONG TOP IN STATE

The Spring Hill College Division of Nursing offers Bachelor of Science programs on campus and Master’s degree programs online. Also online, Spring Hill offers a Bachelor of Science program for those who are already registered nurses and want to move into leadership roles in healthcare. Last year, RNCareers.org ranked Spring Hill’s Division of Nursing as the top four-year nursing program in Alabama.

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SPRING/SUMMER 2022