Aloha! I am excited to share my experience at the Continuums of Service 17th Conference (COS). Having presented at four previous COS conferences in the western states, I must say Hawai'i was indeed paradise.
I had the opportunity, once again, to meet fellow colleagues as excited as I am to teach service-learning courses. Nursing does lend itself to the service-learning model but many campuses, community members, and colleagues from Provosts to faculty had wonderful projects involving many disciplines.
My colleague Ali Meyers from Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa and I presented our poster on the new Transition into Practice program we rolled out summer of 2013. This program provided the opportunity for 33 local recent graduates of Registered Nursing programs to select an internship in the area of their choosing. After the ten week 280- hour program all 33 were offered employment. More news on the success of this program: both Santa Rosa Memorial-St Josephs and Queen of the Valley Hospitalare joining in this effort to provide a transition program to even more graduates in the North Bay area. This translates to better patient care for all community members in our region.