Bailey attended HOSA her junior and senior year at the Bibb County Career Academy in 2022. She graduated from Bibb County High School in 2023 with a BMC Pathways Scholarship and went straight to college at the University of West Alabama to attend their associates program. Bibb Medical Center's Nursing Pathway Scholarship offers student's an all expenses paid education, in exchange for two years of service after graduation.
Bailey knew she wanted to go into nursing from the time she was in middle school. Her grandmother, Lindsay Giddiens was a nurse practitioner and long time friend of the instructor, Mrs. Barbara Terry. She knew HOSA would give her the opportunity to explore nursing more and help her decide what field she enjoyed more. Bailey preferred the smaller class sizes at the career academy and having her friends attend class with her. To her surprise, she loved attending clinicals at the nursing home most of all and the patient interactions she experienced there. She felt like she learned a lot from her patients and getting to spend time with them. Bailey decided to go ahead and take the exam to become a CNA after attending the training in HOSA and passed.
I felt more confident going into nursing school thanks to HOSA. I already knew a lot of the basic things and medical terminology that my classmates were just seeing for the first time.
Bailey plans to complete her Associate in Science in Nursing, ASN at the University of West Alabama and then hopefully bridge to BSN later. She loves the idea of coming back to work in her community and give back to those who helped her succeed.
West Alabama has a smaller class size than larger universities with around fifty students. She says skills checkoffs have been great because their program utilizes video platform. The dean is readily available to students and instructors are easy to talk to. Their clinicals are held at Butler County, Demopolis, Meridian and Tuscaloosa so there is a broad outreach of places to experience rather than one facility.
Learn more about West Alabama's Nursing Program here: https://www.uwa.edu/colleges/division-of-nursing/
Find out more about BMC Scholarships here.
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