10 Nursing Residency Cohorts in Five Years

Five years after launching, the Sierra View Medical Center (SVMC) Nursing Residency Program welcomes its 10th Cohort. In partnership with Vizient, Inc. and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), the program serves to prepare recently graduated nurses to transition to practice across a variety of nursing units. Vizient/AACN Nurse Residency Program™ is nationally recognized and accredited.

The SVMC program began in 2017 as a strategic way to ensure that new nurses could receive essential training to transition to practice upon arrival at Sierra View. The first SVMC cohort graduated in 2018. According to Vizient, Inc., “a 10-year panel study of new graduate nurses, found that 17.5 percent leave their first nursing jobs within the first year.” This, they say, is “mainly due to a lack of professional nursing development programs available to support them when they transition from academia to a clinical setting.”*

“The nurse residency program is one way in which Sierra View continues to remain competitive in offering novice nurses a welcoming environment and are supported across nursing departments,” says Sierra View’s Chief Nursing Officer Dr. Jeffery Hudson-Covolo. This program has better than 95% retention of nurses in their first year.

The 11 Participants of Sierra View’s Vizient/AACN Nurse Residency Program™ Cohort 10 and their key areas of nursing interest are:

• Alonso Valle Mariscal RN (Emergency Department)

• Felicia Celaya RN (Emergency Department)

• Emely Estrada RN (Emergency Department)

• Vanessa Garibay RN (Emergency Department)

• Gina Yang RN (Labor & Delivery)

• Jennelyn Argosino RN (Obstetrics)

• Karina Lizarraga RN (Medical-Surgical)

• Maria Ramos Torres RN (Medical-Surgical)

• Harley Davis RN (Medical-Surgical)

• Brent Torres RN (Float Pool)

• Benjamin Cha RN (Endoscopy)

Nurse residents are welcomed by the Clinical Education team at Sierra View Medical Center where they receive a comprehensive onboarding experience including an introduction to Sierra View as an organization and the nursing division. “The professional development of nurses begins on day one,” says Clinical Educator Christine Williams MSN, RN, CCRN, PHN. As the coordinator for the program, she leverages her more than three decades of nursing experience to help prepare new nurses to care for Porterville and surrounding communities. “Each nurse will receive individualized support and spend time in a variety of nursing units to gain a robust skillset,” says Williams.

Sierra View is currently accepting nurse residency applications for Cohort #11 which will start in the summer of 2022. Applicants must have a CA RN License, or be scheduled to take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) and have an Interim Permit from the CA Board of Nursing. New nurses interested in beginning their Registered Nursing career at Sierra View Medical Center may visit www.sierra-view.com/careers to view the latest career opportunities in several departments in all areas of nursing. SVMC Talent Acquisition Partner Lance Rowell may be reached directly by phone at 559-788-6079 or by email (LRowell@sierra-view.com).

*To learn more about the Vizient/AACN Nurse Residency Program™ and retention rates, please visit https://www.vizientinc.com/our-solutions/clinical-solutions/vizient-aacn-nurse-residency-program.

Sierra View’s Vizient/AACN Nurse Residency Program™ Cohort 10

Clinical Educator Christine Williams MSN, RN, CCRN, PHN meets with each cohort regularly. To date, 66 Registered Nurses have graduated from the program since the fall of 2018. SVMC’s Vizient/AACN™ Nurse Residents stay together throughout the year-long program as they learn key information about nursing in a variety of department to help them become well-rounded nursing professionals.