David Mota puts his phone away to eliminate the temptation to touch it before he slips into a medical gown. Positioning his goggles just right so they don’t slip, he hooks his face mask around his ears and snaps on gloves before heading down the hall to see his next COVID-19 patient.
Mota, 22, serves as an electrocardiogram technician three times a week at various local nursing homes, meticulously cleaning his equipment between patient visits. And at the end of the day, he obsessively sanitizes himself, wiping down his shoes before entering his mother’s house.
The constant need for caution and decontamination in the age of the coronavirus might be disconcerting to some, but not to Mota.
He has worked as a licensed certified nursing assistant since he was 17 and recently graduated with an associate degree in applied sciences with a major in radiography from the Community College of Rhode Island this month.
“I’m very set on what I want to do,” said Mota.
He’s now interviewing for a position as a vascular intervention radiographer at Rhode Island Hospital.
The coronavirus pandemic has both heightened the need for health care workers and fed the motivation of college graduates such as Mota, who are prepping to join a profession that many say is recession-proof.
For years, nursing students have been told the need for medical workers would only grow as health professionals reached their retirement years and an aging population would need more care. But in the “new normal” created by the coronavirus, the interest in entering the industry could be ratcheted even higher.
‘They have demonstrated incredible resilience ... to really dive into this.’
ARA MILLETTE, Lifespan Corp. recruitment manager
For Mota, the favorable job market was a deciding factor to get into the field, and he thinks the pandemic will influence future college applicants, too, particularly with the uncertainty in other sectors.
“You’ll always have a job,” Mota said of health care. “Everywhere you go, there’s an opportunity.”
Several local colleges say that it’s too early to tell if the coronavirus crisis will boost enrollment in health care programs in the future, or if it might leave them with fewer students because the pandemic has highlighted the potential dangers of the job.
This much is clear: Health care students are eager to move into the workforce. New initiatives introduced by the R.I. Department of Health in response to the pandemic have been flooded with interest, such as issuing temporary emergency CNA licenses to undergraduate nursing students and granting permission for graduates to function as registered nurses, with supervision, before obtaining their nursing licenses.
“There’s been a tremendous number of students applying for the emergency CNA license,” said Debra Servello, the interim dean of Rhode Island College’s School of Nursing. “And it’s been going on for the last month and a half.”
Typically, five or six RIC students seek CNA licenses each semester, Servello said. This spring, that number skyrocketed to 55, in part because of an initiative that relaxed the requirements to obtain a temporary license and waived the fee.
At the same time, Servello said, seven students applied for emergency nursing licenses that allowed graduating students to act temporarily as registered nurses, with supervision, before taking their licensing exams.
“There has never been anything like this since 1918 with the influenza [pandemic],” she said. “There’s going to be an extreme need for nurses because this pandemic is not going to go away quickly.”
Ara Millette, who manages recruitment of nurses for Lifespan Corp., said the recent nursing graduates who have earned themselves a temporary assignment have been exceptional – and crucial.
“They have demonstrated incredible resilience and willingness to really dive into this wholeheartedly,” said Millette, outlining how Lifespan hires 125 newly graduated nurses each year, most of them Rhode Islanders.
For now, Millette said, Lifespan has had to put recruitment efforts into overdrive because the feared surge of hospitalizations was tamped down. Rhode Island’s case count of more than 14,000 and COVID-19 death toll of more than 600 (as of May 27) have been dwarfed by hot spots such as Massachusetts – more than 91,600 cases and 6,300 deaths – and New York – more than 360,000 cases and 23,000 deaths.
CCRI President Meghan Hughes said the school is doing its part to get more trained health care professionals to the front line, calling CNAs the “lifeblood” of the health system. She said that many of the students who are enrolled in their certificate program are already working in the health care sector, but she expects more emergency licensing to be approved in the coming weeks.
Mota, whose long-term goal is to be an orthopedic surgeon, is already entering the workforce and says it’s rewarding to be working in the industry in these times when so much selflessness is needed.
“You risk getting sick in order to treat someone else,” said Mota.
Alexa Gagosz is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Gagosz@PBN.com.
