photo by: Derek Redd

Students and instructors in Belmont College’s nursing program pose for a photo following Thursday’s WVU Medicine Aspiring Nurses Program signing ceremony.

WHEELING — The path to becoming a nurse is no easy one, taking hours upon hours of training and study. The last thing a nursing student needs in that journey is any outside worries that could delay or derail them along that path.

WVU Medicine gave another group of nursing students some breathing room from those worries, signing 15 students from Belmont College, Ohio University Eastern and West Virginia Northern Community College into their Aspiring Nurses program.

The program, funded exclusively by the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese, gives financial and other support to qualifying nursing students. The Aspiring Nurses Program gives cohort members $5,000 per semester for their last four semesters of school, plus another $5,000 upon completion, for a total of up to $25,000.

Following graduation, the nurses will become bedside nurses at WVU Medicine hospitals for three years.

Melanie Heuston, the chief nursing executive for WVU Health System, told those in attendance Thursday at Wheeling Park’s White Palace that this program has done well in keeping top nursing students on track to joining the workforce.

“When I first came here, everybody was worried about having enough nurses, so I had to make that my top priority,” she said. “How do we get more students? How do we get more nurses in the pipeline? Because it’s no secret to all of you, we’re in the middle of a shortage. We’ve been in a shortage for some time.”

As she talked to people around the state, Heuston found that the main reason that nursing students halt their education wasn’t the rigors of the curriculum. It wasn’t affording tuition. It was the pressures that come from problems outside of the classroom — car engine troubles, issues affording rent or other necessities.

So that money from the Aspiring Nurses Program isn’t limited to any one area. It’s for each student to use as he or she sees fit.

“It takes off a lot of pressure, actually,” said WVNCC nursing student Ebony Jamison. “I think, next semester, it’ll help me just be able to focus on my classes more instead of stressing about what could happen. It’ll be a major help.”

Belmont College nursing student Alan Boan said the rigors of nursing school can take up more time in a student’s day than they would originally assume.

“(Belmont College Nursing Director Karolyn) Fox said during our orientation to put in three hours of study time for every hour we’re in class,” he said. “And we did a thing where we split up all the time in the day and you start to see that you have, like, only two hours of free time.”

The money from the program helps free up more time, Boan said. It can help keep a student from having to work another job to keep up with expenses. Those extra hours can be spent studying or taking care of other responsibilities.

“It clears up a lot of time,” he said. “It’s tough to think about those other things, so this helps alleviate that stress.”