concordia recently turned ten years old offering countless students a future in nursing
Celebrating 10 years of nursing at Concordia University!
The year was 2005. Hurricane Katrina hit landfall in Louisiana. Disneyland turned 50. YouTube was introduced and the first Microsoft Xbox 360 went on sale. That same year, Concordia University in Portland launched its inaugural four-year degree nursing cohort – a program that is now celebrating its 10th year of nursing graduates.
A decade of milestones and achievements
In honor of this momentous occasion, donors, alumni, and friends of nursing recently shared a historic evening of reminiscing – celebrating the nursing program’s ten years of milestones and achievements. It was also a wonderful opportunity to congratulate Dr. Donna Bachand on her promotion to Nursing Program Director and say goodbye to Professor of Nursing, Dr. Barbara Floyd after 10 years of service to Concordia and the nursing program.
Nursing by the numbers
In the ten years of nursing at Concordia, there have been 325 nursing graduates. The year with the largest class – 37 students – was in 2014, while the smallest class, with 24, was the first class in 2007. Dr. Bachand has been with the program since its inception in 2005, and Dr. Floyd signed on in the summer of 2006. Students who once had to practice giving injections into oranges and hot dogs now use advanced simulation manikins in our on-site skills lab to check heart tones, monitor blood pressure, and give injections. And the latest all-important NCLEX pass rates from the graduating class of 2015 came in at an impressive 94.29% – the second highest score in the state of Oregon.
Where are they now?
Once a Concordia nurse, always a Concordia nurse! Melanie Baird, an RN who graduated in 2014, now works in a small critical-access hospital in Central Washington. "I am so thankful I chose Concordia for my nursing education," she says. "It taught me how to learn to grow on my own after graduation and contributed to my success and promotion to charge nurse within my first six months."
Following her graduation in 2009, Christina Chin became a cardiac surgical nurse at OHSU. She was an integral member of the surgical team that performed the first heart valve transplant on the west coast, using a new transapical approach. In the summer of 2013, she took her skills to Ghana in West Africa on a humanitarian mission with Cardiostart International, where 22 cardiac procedures were performed during her mission. She recently became OHSU's service coordinator for cardiac, thoracic, and vascular surgery. "I wholeheartedly recommend the nursing program at Concordia. I had very dedicated and caring instructors who provided individual attention and support throughout the program."
Mariah (Raudsepp) Keane, 2014, is currently working at her "dream job" as an RN in the NeuroTrauma Intensive Care Unit at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, caring for level 1 trauma patients, as well as critically ill stroke patients and those with other neurological diagnoses.
And Sable Phillippi, also from the class of 2014, is a charge nurse at Marquis – a skilled, long-term, memory and hospice care center in Oregon City. "Concordia's nursing program gave me the hands-on experience needed to provide patient-centered care. The instructors challenged me to push myself – both academically and personally – which has helped me become a competent charge nurse and a strong leader."
Making a difference
From Concordia's most seasoned professor to its newest faculty member, one thing remains constant: the desire to create the strongest possible cohort of registered nurses with the ability to make a genuine difference to the patients, families, and communities they serve. According to Program Director Dr. Donna Bachand, "Together, we have built a reputable BSN program with strong graduation rates and high NCLEX-RN pass rates. As we move forward into our next ten years, we have a great opportunity to dream big and think about how we can transform nursing and healthcare in the future."