NIC Nursing program making the grade
Tonya Alexander always wanted to be a nurse; she just took a somewhat indirect route to get there. She got married first, had kids — and then, at the age of 35, had the opportunity to go back to school to pursue a nursing degree. She began her education in Montana before coming to the nursing program at North Idaho College.
“I don’t think I could’ve gotten a better education than I did at NIC,” Alexander said. “The rigor of the program gave me everything I needed to get my boards done.”
She said NIC made it easy for her to get into the swing of things, even as a nontraditional student. The instructors, especially, were approachable and supportive.
“They want you to be successful and be a good nurse when you get out in the field,” she said.
To become licensed to practice as a registered nurse, all nursing program graduates take the National Council Licensure Exam (NCLEX), a comprehensive test that is required nationwide. The pass rate for graduates of the NIC nursing program is consistently 95 percent or higher, compared to the national average of 82-85 percent. In fact, for the last two cycles, 100 percent of NIC nursing graduates have passed the test.
“It’s really unheard of,” said NIC Vice President for Instruction Lita Burns. “It’s just an amazing record.” Burns has a nursing background herself and remains passionate about the field. She worked as a pediatric nurse for 10 years and taught nursing at a community college in Wyoming for seven years before becoming director of that nursing program. At the same time, Burns also worked part-time as a nurse. When she came to NIC, though, the job proved too demanding to do both.
“It just breaks my heart because I love being a nurse,” she said. “But now I get to be a part of something larger than just working one-on-one with patients — preparing the future workforce of nurses who will be caring for all of us someday. That’s very rewarding.”
The NIC nursing program is highly selective, with a limited number of slots every year. Even as a 4.0 student, Alexander said she had to apply twice before she was accepted. The rigorous admissions criteria ensure the students who do get in are committed to working hard — the best of the best.
“Our students are very prepared when they enter the program,” said Marian Underdahl, NIC director of nursing.
Because the program is relatively small, the student-instructor ratio stays low, and the instructors themselves are very experienced. Students also have many opportunities to work with patients in a clinical setting at local hospitals and other health care facilities. All these factors contribute to the high pass rate, Underdahl said. All the clinical time she was able to put in as a student was invaluable, Alexander said. Exploring different facets of the health care field helped her to find where her passions lie. Now that she’s working as a registered nurse herself, Alexander said she has noticed NIC nursing students stand out in a clinical setting.
“The NIC students are really advanced compared to students from other programs,” she said.
Alexander has worked at Kootenai Health for almost two years. In fact, the NIC nursing program inspires such confidence in potential employers that she was hired even before she passed the NCLEX. Several of her coworkers are fellow graduates of the program.
“Kootenai Health seems to snap up NIC students,” Alexander said.
The median salary for a registered nurse was $66,640 in 2014. According to the Department of Labor, there will be a 16 percent increase in nursing jobs between 2014 and 2024.
“We’re hitting a nursing shortage now, with baby boomers retiring and needing more care,” Underdahl said. “It’s a growing field.”
As the first person in her family to go to college, Alexander said she can now encourage other people, including her own children, to pursue their passion. That’s just what nursing is for her — both a passion and a privilege, she said, a dream the NIC nursing program helped her to achieve.
“In this field, I get to touch lives every day,” she said. “We see people at their worst, when they’re hurting. To be able to help people on the worst day of their life is an honor and something nurses get to do every day.”