Nurse Transition Program graduates its first class

  • Published
  • By Mike Frangipane
  • 88th Air Base Wing
CINCINNATI, Ohio --  University Hospital and the U.S. Air Force graduated the first class of ten nurses from the Nurse Transition Program Dec. 11.

The NTP is designed to provide college graduate registered nurses the advanced clinical training and experience needed to become Air Force Nurse Corps officers and to prepare them for deployment. University Hospital is the first civilian hospital to partner with the Air Force in this type of program. 

"University Hospital in Cincinnati has turned out to be a fabulous partner for the Air Force medical service," said Col. Kimberly Slawinski, commander of the 88th Medical Group at Wright-Patterson Medical Center.  "The University Hospital NTP is a great flying range for our young wingmen. We've got great flight leads here who took them under their wing. What these young nurses experienced through this program was extraordinary."
 
The graduation ceremony also marks the program's graduation from a pilot to full program status. "We definitely want to keep this going," said Cindy Campbell, University Hospital's director of nursing operations, in her remarks to the graduating class. "You have gained much from this and University Hospital has gained much from it." 

Speaking to the graduates, Col. Slawinski commended the graduating students. "You have forged a path that others will follow. What a wonderful example for the Air Force Medical Service." Adding, "You will be well prepared when you arrive at your next base. You have two professions. You are officers and you are nurses. Welcome to the team. I hope you will realize as I have over the years what a privilege it is to care for our service men and women and their families." 

The graduation fittingly took place in the historic surgical amphitheater in the hospital's Mont Reid Pavilion. Originally constructed in 1915 it is one of only a handful of surgical amphitheaters remaining in the U.S. Following refurbishment in 2005, the University of Cincinnati Department of Surgery rededicated the space as a place of surgical teaching and demonstration. Surgical amphitheaters were traditionally places of training and education of surgeons where residents gathered in these skylight lit rotundas to watch leading surgeons perfect surgical procedures. 

"What a fantastic setting for this ceremony," remarked Col. Thomas Langston, Chief Nurse, 88 Medical Goup, in his address to the graduating class. "This amphitheater played a key role in training and medical instruction," he said. "The first baccalaureate in nursing was offered here in University Hospital. In this setting of firsts, "the joint University Hospital Cincinnati and Air Force Nurse Transition Program serves as a model for what can be done with community alliance. Clinical education, such as you have received in NTP, makes you more proficient, which means saving lives." 

"This is a fantastic preparation for their deployment which they will do probably in their first assignment," said Col Slawinski. "I think they are better prepared than many as a function of their work here. I am very pleased to hear that University Hospital has had a superb experience with this first cadre and they are completely sold on pressing on with this program. I congratulate the students," Col. Slawinski added, "because the feedback that we have had on the wards is 'we want more of these. We want to keep these.' That happens often when we send our military medics out to work in the civilian world; with their professionalism, their discipline, and their work ethic, they make a good impression. This group made a very good impression. They have made us excited to have the next class."