SHREVEPORT – With family and friends yelling the title “Nurse” at their loved ones for the first time, 11 practical nurse graduates at LSUS received their pins and took their oaths Thursday at the program’s graduation.
Donned in their white nursing uniforms, LSUS’s 11 graduates will help replenish a nursing pool in which the average age of nurses across the country has topped 50 years old.
“The demand for healthcare workers has never been higher,” said LSUS Chancellor Dr. Robert Smith. “While the COVID-19 pandemic has really put a damper on folks going into healthcare, at the same time, a lot of baby boomers – folks my age – have been aging out of the workforce.
“At the same time, we’re living longer and expecting a higher level of healthcare. You all have your work cut out for you, but I know that what you’re going to be doing in your field will improve the level of healthcare right here in Shreveport.”
Graduates earning their degrees included Brittney Allen, Hannah Allen, Jessica Curry, Kelsey Davis, Antoinette James, Felicia McKenzie, Destiny Myers, Crystal Pryor, Victor Reyes, Tanya Robinson, and Lauryn Smith.
The 12-month LPN program at LSUS is broken down into a classroom section and a clinicals section.
Smith earned an award for the highest achiever in the classroom portion of the program while Curry claimed the honor for achievement in the field.
These graduates completed the only LPN program in Louisiana that finishes in one year, logging a combined 1,540 hours of theoretical and practical nursing into that condensed timeframe.
Student speaker Felicia McKenzie said the process wasn’t easy.
“Our class has had to overcome hospitalizations, deaths, relationship problems, personal problems, and a whole host of other problems to make it here today,” McKenzie said. “But we were either going to succumb to what was in our way or push through.
“We couldn’t have done it without the faculty’s support and guidance and the support of our family and friends.”
The graduating class demonstrated that support to LSUS’s nursing faculty by presenting plants to each one at the ceremony.
Dr. Dennis Wissing, dean of the college of education and human development, performed the blessing of the hands ceremony while Debbie Holloway directed the Florence Nightingale Pledge.
For more information about the LSUS LPN program and application process, visit the program’s website
