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PORT ROYAL, S.C. () — On Wednesday, 20 students graduated from Beaufort Memorial’s People Achieving Their Highest (PATH) program. Some will become patient care technicians, medical assistants and nurses.
“I think this is our biggest class of the PATH program,” said Russell Baxley, president and CEO of Beaufort Memorial. “And so we just continue to see a lot of success within the organization taking our employees right and helping to elevate them within the organization, whether it’s furthering their career or further education.”
Sitting in the front row, watching each graduate accept their diploma was Trisha Marmo. The former nurse knows how difficult and important healthcare workers are.
For her, the journey through nursing school was tough. She could barely make ends meet, and paying for college was almost impossible.
However, one day, the dean at her school changed her life and covered her education.
“I was going through a really difficult time in my life,” Trisha said. “There had been a series of difficult events that had transpired previously to that point, and to have someone make me feel seen and heard was an amazing gift.”
The National Center for Health Workforce said America is battling a nursing shortage. A total of 100,000 nurses have quit in the past two years.
The number of students entering the field keeps dwindling, leaving hospitals short-staffed and patients without the care they need. That’s another reason why Trisha said this scholarship is so crucial.
“The impact that education had on my own life is really foundational,” Trisha said. “And I also think that there are individuals that need a hand-up in life, and that hand-up was given to me, and I see this as an opportunity to pay that forward and extend that to others.”
Each semester, the hospital will grant five students a scholarship. For Beaufort Memorial, keeping their nurses here is crucial to battling the nationwide nursing shortage.
