With so many nursing career choices at San Bernardino Valley College, the sky is the limit and opportunities abound.

Graduates can be confident that it will not be hard to find a job, as there is no shortage of places to work.

Sana Massad, Acting Faculty Director of Nursing Faculty, said nurses are needed now more than ever in hospitals, in school systems, home health agencies, and nurses at bedside. There are travel nurse opportunities, including helicopter transportation teams. There is also a need for nursing teachers.

“You have surgical centers, diagnostic areas, outpatient clinics, also with the aging population now. The baby boomers, this is the time when more nurses are needed,” she said.

From start to finish, nursing students are guided through an RN cohort group, with the class finishing together in two years through an array of supportive resources. They work closely with a skills lab, and a nursing counselor to learn testing strategies.

Upon graduation, students must also pass the national exam toward their RN to practice in a hospital. To help them succeed, they can develop clinical thinking and clinical reasoning skills to prepare for real-life situations through a Simulation Lab. The scenarios replicate hospital situations and patient conditions.

“They’ve already seen it in the lab so when they are at the bedside they will be able to take care of the patient with the little bit of experience they have developed in the Sim Lab,” Massad said.

In the recent past, many students had to wait for years to get into the program due to its popularity. Under a new admission criteria multi-point system, students can now receive points for prior achievements, such as having an existing degree, or speaking more than one language. They get a point for being a first-year college graduate in the family.

The new system helps them get through the program without waiting.

Massad is excited about other offerings that are attracting more applicants.

She said the Board of Registered Nursing has approved SBVC to help students transition from Psych Tech to RN. After students graduate and work as a Psych Tech, SBVC will then provide a bridge toward increasing the number of mental health nurses.

“We are not just short in nursing, we also have a shortage in nurses taking care of mentally ill patients,” she said.

The campus will also provide a bridge for students moving up from LVN to RN, and she is excited about an upcoming Certified Nurse Assistant program.

SBVC is working with the Cal State system to begin concurrent enrollment opportunities. Students in the nursing program will be at Cal State at the same time when they complete their ADN (Associates Degree in Nursing) program in two years. Once they pass the Board Exam, they can finish their BSN (Bachelors in Nursing) at Cal State in six months.

“With nursing, there is not a single time when you will be bored,” said Massad, who holds a Master’s Degree, and is working on her Ph.D.

She is very proud of their top of the line programs at SBVC. They are very competitive and approved by the Board of Registered Nursing Faculty for clinical and for theory.

“We prepare these students to think and act as a nurse. That takes more than passing a class or passing a course,” she said. “It’s also not about drawing blood, you deal with people’s hearts.”