Professional Development

Mentoring Program

Not only do nurses give back via support and friendship, but they provide guidance and a professional resource to newly licensed/graduate nurse residents.

Mentors are trusted counselors, advisors, guides, listeners and encouragers. This program pairs staff with one year or greater experience with new graduate residents to assist them through their first year of nursing practice.

Mentors are selected from areas outside of the graduate resident’s home department.

This program is voluntary and relies on staff participation for success.

Required Certifications

Many positions at Cookeville Regional Medical Center require staff to be certified in specific skills. If your position requires an American Heart Association (AHA) certification such as Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS), Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), and/or Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP), these are provided at no cost and as paid education time.

Additional specialty training is provided to many other departments, such as:

• Emergency department: Emergency Nurse Pediatric Course (ENPC) and Trauma Nurse Core Curriculum (TNCC).
• Women’s services: Stabilize, Airway, Breathing, Labs Emotional Support (STABLE) and Electronic Fetal Monitoring (EFM).
• 6 North: Basic chemotherapy after one year’s experience.

Specialty Certifications

Specialty certifications are encouraged and reimbursed with an increase in compensation upon certification. Credit is also given within the CLIP program after initial year of certification.

Nursing Critical Care Course

Critical care staff are enrolled in the Cookeville Regional Medical Center Nursing Critical Care Course around their second year of employment. This educational offering consists of approximately 80 hours of the Essentials of Critical Care Orientation (ECCO) modules in our eLearning system and 25 hours of critical thinking and case study discussions over a nine month time frame.

The course is offered once a year, running January through September.

Tuition Reimbursement

Reimbursement for curriculum affiliated with healthcare may be applied for up to $5,000 with a signed agreement.

Research

Cookeville Regional’s nursing program has partnered with Tennessee Technological University’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing faculty to provide guidance in nursing research outside of academics.

Our staff has also published or presented on the below subjects:

• Heart and Lung, Volume 50, Issue1, January-February 2021, Pages 214-219: A multisite study of multidisciplinary ICU team member beliefs toward early mobility: Heart and Lung ; 10/2020
• Journal of Critical Care: 2020 Oct 22;61:168-176 “The Use and Usefulness of ICU Diaries to Support Family Members of Critically Ill Patients.”
• John Hopkins Critical Care Rehabilitation Conference: The Use and Usefulness of ICU Diaries to Support Family Member of Critically Ill Patients: 11/2021