NEWS RELEASE – September 29, 2023
Summers County ARH Hospital and New River Community and Technical College partnership makes education more accessible
September 29, 2023 – Michele Harvey has always known she wanted to work in healthcare.
That’s what led the Wyoming County native to complete an associate’s degree in occupational therapy in 2010.
“I’ve always been a caretaker in one way or the other,” Harvey said. “I’ve always been interested in the medical field and patient care. There’s something special about helping someone and watching them recover and go home better.”
After graduation, Harvey, who by then called Peterstown home, worked at a hospital just over the state line in Virginia. Though she said she enjoyed her job, in 2021 she decided she was perhaps better suited for a career in nursing.
“So, I enrolled in an RN program in Beckley,” she said. “I really liked it, but I’m a single mom, my daughter was in a lot of sports and I was still working as a therapist, so it was hard.”
In time, the hectic pace and back-and-forth drive from Peterstown to Beckley, took its toll and Harvey put school on the backburner.
“It was just too much,” she explained, “but I always hoped I’d find a way to go back.”
It took a few years – a decade, to be exact – but Harvey found her way back with the opening of New River Community and Technical College’s Practical Nursing Program on the campus of Summers County ARH Hospital in Hinton.
“This is perfect for me,” she said of the program which kicked off in late August. “I can be here from my house in 26 minutes, so it’s much more convenient.”
It’s a program more than a year in the making, as officials with Summers County ARH and New River announced the partnership in June 2022 with hopes for an August 2022 launch.
Classroom space as well as a high-fidelity simulation lab were ready to go at the time of the announcement, but Joanna Perry, Director of Practical Nursing for New River, said finding an instructor for the new site proved difficult.
“That was disappointing,” Perry said, of the delay. “It was a bit of a struggle, but we didn’t give up because we knew how important it was to offer a nursing program in this area.”
The search continued for several months until someone Perry referred to as “the perfect fit” for the position, stepped forward.
Registered Nurse Chris Handy, a Beckley native who calls nearby White Oak home, said it was also the perfect opportunity for him.
“I cut my teeth at BARH (Beckley ARH Hospital) 30 years ago when I got out of nursing school, so this is kind of full-circle for me,” he said.
Handy, whose title with New River is Instructor of Practical Nursing, worked as psychiatric nurse at Highland Hospital in Charleston for 20 years and, most recently, served as the house nurse coordinator back at Beckley ARH before accepting a position with FMRS.
The move to the classroom is new for Handy, but he said it’s something about which he is excited.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for both myself, as well as for the Summers County area,” he said. “This gives local students the chance to stay at home and learn and it can also benefit Summers ARH because hopefully some of the students will choose to stay here and work.”
That’s exactly what Summers County ARH Hospital CEO Joey Preast says he hopes to see as well.
“We all know there’s a nationwide nursing shortage, so it’s important to provide as many educational opportunities as possible,” he said. “We want to see these students succeed and, of course, we will welcome them to pursue their careers right here.
“We’re proud to partner with New River,” he continued. “It’s a win-win for everyone and we’re excited to see the program grow.”
Harvey is one of five students enrolled in the year-long program.
At 45, she is one of the oldest students in the class. At 21, Hinton native Lexi Garansuay, is one of the youngest.
Garansuay is one of three 2020 graduates of Summers County High School pursuing their LPN degrees through the program.
The mother of two young children is not a stranger to the medical field or to Summers County ARH, however, as she now balances school with a full-time job as a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant.)
“I have class from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then walk across the parking lot and clock-in to work,” she said. “It’s really convenient.”
Both Harvey and Garansuay are complimentary of their experiences so far and said the small classroom size is helpful.
“I’m really glad there are just a few of us,” Garansuay said. “It allows us to have more one-on-one, hands-on experiences.”
There are just five students in Summers County, but there are 49 others enrolled in the LPN program across New River’s Summersville, Beckley and Lewisburg locations.
Each location has an instructor, or facilitator, on-site, but all work together to deliver the curriculum.
“It’s team learning, virtually,” Perry said, explaining instructors at each location rotate lessons which are watched live on each campus.
“So, they’re all getting the same information from the instructor with the most experience.”
Because of his background in psychiatric nursing, Handy said he expects to be tasked with teaching those subjects.
He will also oversee on-site laboratory learning, as students work with lifelike mannequins equipped with the ability to react and respond to treatment.
“We can program them for a variety of situations,” Perry said, explaining students can listen to breath and heart sounds and take pulses and blood pressures.
“Whatever the situation we’re talking about, we can program them to react and to relate their symptoms,” she said, as an adult mannequin complained, “I feel really cold. I have bad stomach pain.”
Students can draw blood and check the blood sugar of the adult, elderly and child mannequins.
“They can practice working with medication charts and learning how to use electronic medical records,” Perry continued. “They can practice giving medication just like they would on a floor.
“They get to practice here and learn and make mistakes in a safe place so they’ll be ready when they’re in the real world.”
After students complete the LPN program, pass their boards and become licensed through the state, New River Community and Technical College offers a program that will allow them to become Registered Nurses.
It’s a pathway both Harvey and Garansuay say they plan to pursue.
“I’m going to go straight into it,” Harvey said. “It’s a great opportunity.”
And it’s an opportunity both agree they wouldn’t have had without the partnership between Summers County ARH and New River Community and Technical College.
“This is perfect,” Garansuay said of the program that allows her to work and learn close to home. “I want to make a better life for myself so I can better take care of my children.”
Harvey added, “I wouldn’t have been able to do this otherwise, so I’m just grateful and excited for this chance.”
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Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH), is a not-for-profit health system operating 14 hospitals in Barbourville, Hazard, Harlan, Hyden, Martin, McDowell, Middlesboro, Paintsville, Prestonsburg, West Liberty, Whitesburg, and South Williamson in Kentucky and Beckley and Hinton in West Virginia, as well as multi-specialty physician practices, home health agencies, home medical equipment stores and retail pharmacies. ARH employs more than 6,500 people with an annual payroll and benefits of $330 million generated into our local economies. ARH also has a network of more than 600 active and courtesy medical staff members. ARH is the largest provider of care and the single largest employer in southeastern Kentucky and the third-largest private employer in southern West Virginia.