UTA

UTA Nursing Students ‘Highly Recruited' Ahead of Fall Graduation

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COVID-19 cases are on the rise as we head into the thick of the holiday season. That means a heightened sense of responsibility for those on the front lines. On Friday, UTA’s School of Nursing and Health Innovation will graduate upwards of 2,000 students from various programs.

Joyce Robinson says the world has changed drastically since starting nursing school. For starters, there wasn’t a global pandemic.

“My goodness, it’s been a vast difference with taking care of patients because the pandemic is no joke. It’s serious,” said Robinson. “People need help. People are suffering.”

Over the last year and half, she admits she’s paused at the thought of working on the front lines. Still, she persisted and completed the program.

“You know that you’re trained to do this. If you don’t do it, nobody else knows how to do it. So, you do what you have to do,” Robinson said.

She’ll join the others Friday obtaining various nursing and health innovation degrees from UTA. Some 400 from the bachelor's program alone. Dr. Elizabeth Merwin is Dean of the school and said she’s never seen the healthcare industry recruit like this before.

“All of these students, whatever their background is, are being highly recruited because the health system needs the new workforce,” said Erwin.

As different variants emerged, Dr. Mewrin said the students are equipped to adapt and meet the demands.

“As hard as it is to learn all the content and skills and clinical judgment and factual information that one needs in a usual time, the students coming out now have to be more flexible, work harder, study longer,” Merwin said.

With COVID-19 cases on the upswing again and a new highly transmissible variant, Robinson heads to Houston to work on the front lines.

“I’m proud to say that I am giving help during a moment like this,” she said.

Graduation for UTA’s College Nursing will take place Friday at 6 p.m. at Globe Life Field.

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