Ozarks Tech latest to join Mercy Springfield’s ‘Win from Within’ program

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. —Michael Pesina is trying to carve out a different career path, similar to his mother’s.

“My mom’s a practitioner and I’ve seen her have a lot of success. She started as an LPN and bridge step from there to R.N. and to her current position,” Pesina said.

He previously worked manual labor jobs and with just one visit to Ozarks Tech, fell into the Win from Within program.

“I actually got tired of doing manual labor and I wasn’t having insurance and stuff like that,” Pesina said. “I went to go ask for the classes at Ozarks Tech just to look into them and by the time I left, I was signed up and registered for all my pre-requisites and for this program.”

So what is the Win from Within program?

“This is a tremendous program for people in the community to get a full ride into health care. A lot of people get full ride scholarships to go to different institutions. Mercy’s now given an opportunity to come to Ozarks Tech and to pick a health care field in a nursing, respiratory, surgery tech, and a lot of others and get that opportunity to be paid for and to work at Mercy so that they can earn money while they’re getting their degree,” said Dr. Aaron Light with Ozarks Tech.

If you qualify for the program, which would apply to those majoring in the health care industry at Ozarks Tech, you can work for Mercy Springfield and receive financial assistance while you do it, but you must stay employed with Mercy Springfield after graduation.

“A lot of those other programs, it’s a tuition reduction, not necessarily a cover, all tuition and fees. This one is at the $10,000 per year for any of our programs. It actually covers all the tuition, all the fees for any of our programs. So it truly covers the cost, not just reducing the expense,” Light said.

Mercy Springfield says they include other colleges in the program, but Ozarks Tech is just the latest to partner with the local health giant.

“Our Win from Within program is really intended to help release some financial burden from our coworkers and get skilled health workers into the health care environment,” Jessica Atchison, the program director at Mercy Springfield said. “It does encourage a majority of their clinical hours to be within a mercy facility that gives us the ability to ingrain them in our culture, see what it’s like, and ensure that we find the right place for them post-graduation, otherwise it is them doing school like they normally would.”

So far Ozarks Tech has 15 students in the program.

“We’re really hoping that this program grows and there will be significantly more programs for people in the program in the future,” Light said. “The biggest barriers that people always come with in college is ‘I don’t want to loan’ or ‘I need to be able to work and earn some money’. This particular program addresses both of them because they’ll actually be able to work at Mercy as an employee and then have their tuition paid for.”

This not only allows Mercy to have more workers in the industry but the guaranteed employment is a reassurance for both the hospital and the workers post-graduation in an industry that has seen shortages over the years.

“Employment post-graduation is dependent on how many years that they participate in the program. It is up to three years of employment post-graduation,” Atchison said. “That gives us the ability to invest in our future pipeline, in our future workforce, where we know that there are people [who are] going to be a steady supply of nurses, respiratory therapists, surgical techs coming into the workforce because we’re investing in them upfront.”

Like Pesina, who knows the financial advantages he’ll have in the program.

“This program will pay for itself, and when you’re finished with this program, you’re going to make the money that you need to make to pay anything that you did borrow back off and within a fairly decent amount of time,” Pesina said. “As far as the economy goes, if you don’t or take a chance like [this], it could be a long time before you’re even able to catch up.”

The day-to-day routine also depends on how far along in the program each student is.

“It is based on their program where their clinical experience will be, and our facility is based on where they’re at in their program. If they’re in the beginning of their program, it’s going to be more activities of daily living, how to take vital signs, how to engage with a patient, whereas they move through their program, it is going to be more in-depth and complex tasks, as a nurse would have or as a respiratory therapist would have,” Atchison said. “They come on-site, they get an assignment, just as our core coworkers would, they work alongside our staff to then exercise and experience the things that they have learned didactic in a classroom, to then put it into experience on a patient.”

“I’ve seen surgeries. I’ve seen a lot of medication administration. I’ve seen some different aspects of [different] medical fields,” Pesina said. “I’m a hands on learner and for me that’s the best, because you can read a book, you can tell me stuff all day long, but until I actually get there and do it myself, it doesn’t matter. Since I’ve been in a setting like this, it to me is so much easier. It’s so much easier to get up there and want to, and it’s intimidating, but once you get past that and you start to practice those skills, it becomes very it puts you at ease.”

Atchison says going online is the best way to learn more.

“[Those interested] will apply through our Mercy careers at MercyCareers.net. They can search ‘Win from Within’ as like as they would a job, and it pops up the program if they are not already employed with Mercy, our academic relations team will work with them to find them employment during school as well as help them find that post-graduation employment as well,” Atchison said.

Ozarks Tech says they have open enrollment for those who qualify through October 31.

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