EL CAJON, Calif. (KGTV) — It was an exciting day for nursing students at Grossmont College on Wednesday.
Thirty students were pinned as a part of the completion of their studies which they started during the pandemic. This was a time when the medical field and the entire world were changing and students had to adjust.
Like many schools and colleges across the country, Grossmont College had to go virtual for some time. Students completed their studies online, but were sent home with kits filled with medical equipment.
Student Leonardo Becerra stays the journey wasn’t easy.
“It was challenging, it was really, really difficult,” says Becerra. “It was scary too because there was the chances of us getting COVID or passing it on to people, so we had to be very cautious.”
Students spent a lot of time in the Clinical Skills Lab on campus. It's a hands-on classroom where students run through scenarios that they would encounter with real patients.
The 31-year-old veteran was a combat medic in the Army. He says there was one experience that changed his outlook on nurses.
“I was working on a patient in Afghanistan, I froze up because it was pediatric, it was a child. I didn’t know how to respond,” says Becerra. “All these medics trained to do this job were frozen because we didn’t know what to do. The one person that stood up and took charge was a nurse.”
Becerra took his final exam for the nursing program this week. He says it's surreal that he made it to this point.
“Out of 40, only 30 of us made it, out of 400 people that applied.” He added “We had 80 questions on this exam. The last five questions, it took everything to hold it together because I was just so excited about this coming into fruition.”
Becerra and other students will now wait to take the state test to become a registered nurse.
