Citizens School of Nursing graduates ready to work during covid-19 pandemic

Graduating from nursing school during the covid-19 pandemic made Michelle DeBernardin more certain of her decision to become a nurse.

“I’m not afraid to get to work. This is what we prepared for,” she said. “It’s certainly not the ideal situation to walk into as a new nurse, but we have the education behind us to help us handle it and it doesn’t change your passion.”

DeBernardin, 35, of Allegheny Township, was among 73 students who graduated this spring from the Allegheny Health Network Citizens School of Nursing.

The school, located in the Pittsburgh Mills mall in Frazer since January 2019, closed because of the pandemic on March 20. A virtual graduation ceremony was held Wednesday.

The class consisted of 62 women and 11 men, said Lynne Rugh, the school’s director for 30 years. Their education began in August 2018, when the school was still at the former Citizens General Hospital in New Kensington.

“They are survivors,” Rugh said of the class. “I don’t think any other graduating class in our history has had the changes and the uncertainty that these people have had.”

When the students were sent home, Rugh said they thought they’d be out for only two weeks and be back quickly. That didn’t happen.

“We are not a school that ever participated in remote learning,” she said. “We had to learn how to set up a Zoom meeting and conduct classes that way. Our students had to go home and master all the technology they needed to participate in a Zoom classroom.”

While some may call them the “covid class,” Marcia Cook, AHN’s director of schools of nursing and nursing research, said she prefers to call them the “class of courage,” defined by their resiliency, courage and flexibility.

Of the 73 graduates, 57 have job offers, Rugh said.

“Our goal was that we had to get these seniors through the last part of their education to graduation so they can take their state board exam, become licensed and join the workforce,” Cook said. “We need them on the front line. We need them to take the jobs they’ve been hired for.

“They’re ready to go and take it on in spite of the fact it could be dangerous.”

Lauren Westcoat, 21, a 2017 Kiski Area graduate from Washington Township, has accepted a job in the cardiac telemetry unit at Forbes Regional Hospital, where she worked as a nursing assistant after losing her job as a waitress because of the virus.

“I’m not afraid of being exposed. I’m there to help people. If it happens, it happens,” she said. “We’re all taking precautions. I’m not living in fear.”

For Westcoat, finishing her studies at home was difficult. “When you go to school every day you’re expecting to learn. When you’re at home you don’t expect to take classes. It was difficult to navigate that,” she said.

As part of her studies, Westcoat spent time on the labor and delivery floor at West Penn Hospital, where she participated in nearly a dozen births.

“Doing that really helped, to see all the hope and the new life that was coming into the world in the midst of this pandemic,” she said.

Katie Moretti, 38, of Arnold, had never taken an online class — and then everything went online.

“I have to give the teachers credit for being able to make the switch that fast,” she said. “They were still there to answer questions and support us no matter what.”

Moretti wants to go into oncology after helping care for her father, Peter Moretti, who died from cancer in 2012. She did her clinical time at Forbes and Allegheny Valley hospitals. None of the students went into areas with covid cases, which the school did to protect them.

“You have to get used to you’re around the flu all the time and other things that you can get,” she said. “You kind of go, ‘Let’s get it done and do it.’ It strengthened our resolve to help, for all of us.”

DeBernardin, who graduated from Highlands in 2003, wants to be an emergency room trauma nurse and spent time in the emergency room at Allegheny General Hospital. For now, she’s taken a job in the cardiac telemetry unit at Forbes.

“As a new nurse I’m just excited to get on the floor and work with patients,” she said. “This is what I wanted my entire life. I wanted to help sick people. If they have covid or if they need a Band-Aid, I want to be the person that’s helping them.”