ORLANDO, Fla. — A Central Florida program is helping build confidence for future nurses to try to stem a persistent problem with staffing shortages.

What You Need To Know

  • Seminole State College's partnership with Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital seeks to stem nurse shortage 

  • The college graduates about 240 nurses per year and is expanding its Altamonte Springs campus 

  •  A dedicated education unit, or DEU, allows for hands-on training and mentorship

  • One future nurse, Elena Esquen, credits the opportunity with building her confidence

Seminole State College partnered with Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital in Longwood to implement a dedicated education unit, allowing for hands-on training and mentoring opportunities via current nurses on the floor.

“We feel it gives our students the best advantage as they go out into the world,” said Nancy Gasper, Seminole State’s dean of nursing. “They can hit the ground running. It helps create better critical thinking skills. They can prioritize, learn how to delegate.”

The program, now in its third year, has steadily grown from eight students to 16 each semester, Gasper said. The school graduates about 240 nurses per year and is expanding its Altamonte Springs campus.

She noted that her school was the “first in Central Florida area to implement a dedicated education unit,” noting many others have since followed suit.

Elena Esquen, who hopes to graduate in April, said the program has had a profound impact on her life.

For decades, Esquen worked as a teacher and part-time Disney server, but she wanted a single career path.

“I felt like I was dedicating myself to too many places and doing a lot of different things, but I really wanted one career,” she explained.

So at the age of 52, Esquen started over and began working to become a nurse, a career of which she always dreamed.

For months, Esquen said that she has leaned on a “safety net” of other nurses — like her mentor Sharon Gustavsson, who serves as a Seminole State adjunct instructor — and tapped upon her own intuition.

“I may be a new nurse, but I’m not a new human," Esquen said. "I know how to do things. So, I get to bring the skills of a server, a Disney cast member; the skills of an educator, a parent — to be a nurse. I love getting to look at the chart, getting to look at the notes, getting to hear the stories from the nurses of the patients they’ve taken care of before, then getting to take care of them. They’re my baby for the day.”

And while Esquen has looked to her mentor, her five children have looked to the single mother.

When her daughter, Amanda, was suddenly paralyzed and diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome at 11 years old, Esquen spent a great deal of time in the hospital.

That experience, she said, was the catalyst for this moment.

“She learned to walk again, to write, to eat. … She was really taken under her wing by nurses,” Esquen said, her voice heavy with emotion. “She said to me, ‘Mom, I’m going to be a nurse when I grow up.’ Fast forward, she graduated from Seminole State, she turned around and said, ‘Mom, it’s your turn'.”