Napa County college launching nursing program for paramedics

A four-year college in Napa County is about to become one of just two in the state that will train paramedics to become registered nurses.

Beginning in late August, Pacific Union College, a private liberal-arts school in Angwin, will welcome nine current paramedics who will spend 18 months training to become registered nurses.

The fact that 35 paramedics applied for the program that has just nine spots available is a good sign, given the mass exodus over the last few years of burned-out critical care and emergency room nurses, said Kimberly Dunker, PUC’s professor of nursing and chair, health science department.

“For a lot of these paramedics, that's where they're going to feel most comfortable transitioning, at least initially,” Dunker said. “So, I do think that is going to be huge for ERs to be able to hire somebody that's been a paramedic and is now a nurse. What a find.”

PUC’s program, called the Emergency Medical Technician-Paramedic to Registered Nurse program, or EMT-P to RN program, will be taught with flexibility in mind in what the college describes as “core weeks,” where students come to class Sunday to Wednesday for 8-hour days, every six weeks, with 12-hour clinical labs taking place on Sundays. The format was designed to allow working paramedics to continue to work full time as they undertake their studies, according to Cori Carlson, adviser for paramedic students. Tuition for the program is approximately $30,000.

It was Carlson who about a year ago raised the idea of bringing such a nursing program to the college after sitting down with Dunker, who was interested in hearing fresh ideas from her staff after having joined PUC a year ago.

“I told her that my dream was to create this program, that I myself was a paramedic who became a nurse and have been an educator in EMS programs within the (emergency department),” Carlson said. “I really felt that there was a gap in this career pathway.”

The biggest difference in the emergency medical services field between emergency medical technicians and paramedics is the level of education and care they can provide, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

Paramedics, in addition to performing the tasks of an EMT, can give patients medications orally and intravenously, interpret electrocardiograms, and use other monitors and complex equipment, according to the government agency.

Carlson had seen firsthand the successful outcome of such a program at Napa Valley College, which ultimately dropped it because “they didn’t have the bandwidth to keep it going,” she said.

“The paramedics that I watched graduate from there, and then subsequently hired into the ER that I was managing at that time, were very, very strong nurses,” said Carlson, who worked for more than a dozen years at Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa.

Pacific Union College’s EMT-P to RN program was presented to the California Board of Registered Nursing in April during an on-site campus visit and was given approval on May 17, according to the college.

“I think it's going to be a real need for the community,” Dunker said. “We know that these programs are very hard to find.”

The closest — and only other program in California — is more than 200 miles away, at College of the Redwoods in Eureka, according to RegisteredNursing.org, an organization based in Carlsbad.

Paramedics who transition to nursing also can earn higher pay, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As of May 2021, the median annual wage for registered nurses was $77,600, while the median annual wage for EMTs and paramedics was $36,930, according to the agency.

After PUC received approval to move forward with this specialized degree, the college launched a social media promotion campaign. Within 24 hours, there were more than 100 people expressing interest, Dunker said.

One of the paramedics entering PUC’s inaugural program is Morgan Sanders, a Livermore resident who has worked both as an EMT and paramedic for Santa Clara County for more than seven years.

“I want to be able to do more, learn more and, ultimately, help out more,” she said.

Sanders, 29, said one of the biggest motivating factors in her decision to transition from a paramedic to a registered nurse is her desire to know how her patients fared after being taken to the hospital.

“When we have a patient (in the ambulance), and especially a complicated one when we don't know exactly what's going on because we don't diagnose in the field, we can only take educated guesses of what's going on,” she said. “We don't typically get to know what happens to them unless you go back to that same hospital, see that same nurse or doctor that you dropped your patient off to and say, ‘Hey, what happened to them? What was their diagnosis?’”

PUC’s incoming students will do their clinical training at either Queen of the Valley or NorthBay Healthcare.

“NorthBay Health has partnered with PUC for many years by supporting clinical rotations for their pre-licensure nursing students,” Nursing Education Specialist Megan Duncan, EdD, MSN-Ed, RN, said in an email statement. “We are excited to continue this partnership by enfolding the EMT-RN students into our hospitals.”

Sanders, who had learned of her acceptance into the PUC program just hours before speaking with the Business Journal, expressed excitement for her future.

“I love emergency medicine, but I might not love emergency (medicine) for the rest of my career,” she said. “And being a nurse, I can go into labor and delivery, or fertility or surgery — there’s just a lot more options and opportunity for change.”

Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care and education. She previously worked for a Gannett daily newspaper in New Jersey and NJBIZ, the state’s business journal. Cheryl has freelanced for business journals in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.