FORT CAMPBELL, KY – Two college nursing students sacrificed part of their summer break from pursuing their nursing degrees to don hospital scrubs and participate in the U.S. Army Nurse Summer Training Program at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital, Fort Campbell, from July 5-31.
These students are members of the Army’s Reserve Officer Training Corps, which provides up to 100% of tuition coverage at more than 1,000 colleges and universities. According to the U.S. Army Cadet Command, each summer, more than 200 Army ROTC cadets with an academic major of nursing are selected for NSTP at one of 20 military hospitals in the United States and abroad.
“The Army Nurse Corps, and the Military Health System as a whole, have an important role in our national defense strategy,” said BACH Nurse Summer Training Program Director Lt. Col. Adam Campbell.
The MHS provides medical and dental care so that service members are in good health and capable of deploying where our nation needs them. Army nurses are a component of the MHS ready medical force capable of going anywhere our nation needs to establish and sustain healthcare.
The nurse cadets represent the future of the Army Nurse Corps, and NSTP introduces cadets to the Army Medical Department and to the roles and responsibilities of an Army Nurse Corps officer.
The NSTP cadets hone their skills through this program to prepare for their senior year of nursing school. The program also gives them real-world experience of what their future as an Army nurse will be like, according to Army Nurse Capt. Chelsey Freland, assistant coordinator for cadet training at BACH and clinical nurse officer in charge of the hospital’s in-patient unit.
“The cadets are able to rotate through all areas of the hospital based on their skill set and where they see themselves in the next couple of years. The two cadets will get their medical-surgical experience now before finishing school and starting the Clinical Nurse Transition Program.
“These cadets have chosen to shadow nurses in the BACH ICU or ER areas to get a feel for what areas they would like to see or possibly specialize in,” stated Freland.
As an NSTP alumna herself, Freland shares her personal feelings about the benefits of this program and how it helped her when she was pursuing her nursing degree at a civilian college, going through clinicals at a civilian facility.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to specialize in or if I even wanted to specialize at all, and this program is a great learning experience and an eye-opening opportunity to see how the Army clinicals are compared to their civilian hospital clinicals,” admitted Freland.
As the current NSTP assistant coordinator, Freland implemented additional training evolutions in the program to expose the cadets to the Army leadership roles they will fill upon becoming commissioned Army officers as well as expose them to the tradition and history of the Army presence here at Fort Campbell.
“The cadets conducted PT (physical training) with troop command and the medical company command, and they also toured Fort Campbell and the museum to get a sense of the history and tradition tied to this post and the commands here,” said Freland.
To learn more about ROTC college scholarship and training opportunities, visit armyrotc.army.mil.