Each week, Gulf Coast radio host Ricky Mathews hosts the Singing River Health Talk segment on SuperTalk Mississippi. He recently spoke with longtime Singing River employee and Singing River Healthcare Academy Nurse Educator, Richr’D Moore.
Q: Tell me what you’re developing at Singing River Healthcare Academy.
Our goal is to give ourselves the workforce that we need to take care of our citizens in Mississippi, but also opportunity for communities—community growth, community involvement, and financial stability in communities. When people ask about what we do, it’s all about growth for Singing River and growth for communities around us. We want to empower, we want to enrich, and we want to grow.
Q: What students are you looking for to be in this program?
We’re looking for people who are willing to work and who have a drive to improve this Healthcare Academy. It’s not just about a one level and done. We want a legacy of people to grow in Singing River, just like I grew in Singing River. That’s what we want.
We want you to start off at the entry level because we offer entry level courses, but you can also progress and go further. You can start off as a CNA, we’ll train you for that, but we don’t expect you to stay there. We want you to go on and get your MA. Then, we want you to go on and get your LPN. We are currently trying our best to make sure that we have a bridge program where we can support you if you’re going for that RN.
We don’t want you to stay at entry level—we want you to grow through Singing River, and that’s what our Academy is all about, so we’re looking for candidates who want to learn and who want to grow with Singing River.
Q: Tell me about the facility itself.
On the first floor we have employee health and human resources. There is a link between our academy and human resources, which is very important because we train you. We’re not just giving you education, we’re also giving you employment. We do have a split where our human resources and training is on the first floor. Intake is on the first floor, and the second floor is where we really shine.
Our academy is in a state-of-the-art building with multiple classrooms. We have classrooms for CNA, medical assistant, phlebotomy, surgical technology, pharmacy assistant, and our LPN program. We have an open, eight-bed skills lab with eight beds and eight simulation patients. We have high fidelity simulation rooms. We have two of those where we can run scenarios. Just yesterday, we were running scenarios for LPNs on hemothorax and cardiac arrest.
Watch the whole interview: