As many nurses say they plan to leave bedside care, these Philly-area grads can’t wait for their first hospital job

A pediatric cancer survivor was inspired by the nurses who cared for her. A 54-year-old was seeking a career change after a layoff. These future nurses are among the hundreds of students graduating this spring with nursing degrees from Philadelphia-area schools.

They are entering the field at a difficult time, with hospitals understaffed and nurses exhausted. In some health care settings, nurses report being assaulted by patients and feeling unsafe on the job.

Despite reports of burnout across the field, nursing students are celebrating their graduation this month at more than a dozen universities in the region. The Inquirer spoke to four graduates from different universities about their paths to their first nursing jobs.

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Armani Gregory wasn’t supposed to be on the cardiac care unit as a nursing student at Thomas Jefferson University. But when he had to miss a day at another clinic, the unit offered a chance for him to make up the hours.

By the end of the day, he told the other nurses that he is going to be working there after graduating.

“I was blown away,” the 33-year-old originally from New York City said.

Gregory is among the roughly 60% of nurses graduating from Jefferson who opt to work within the 18-hospital health system. After his licensing exam, he will go back to work at the cardiac unit to care for patients with heart failure.

Nursing is not his first career. After working at Campbell Soup Co. for a few years, he decided to invest in the education needed to realize his teenage dream of working in health care.

He knows that nursing is a challenging profession, in which short staffing contributes to the burnout that has prompted many experienced nurses to leave the profession. Gregory plans to prioritize his work-life balance.

“We are in a profession where we are there to help others,” he said. “But we can’t help them if we don’t help ourselves.”

Mollie Ward was diagnosed with a rare pancreatic cancer before she was 2 years old. The Cherry Hill native recovered thanks to experimental treatments. A couple years later, her younger sister was diagnosed with a different cancer.

Both sisters are now cancer-free and healthy. And the experience shaped Ward.

“There are so many nurses that I’ve had in my life that have become such an inspiration to me,” Ward, now 22 said.

During her time as a nursing student at La Salle University, she met nurses who told her, “Get out while you can.” But she isn’t discouraged. Ward sees nursing as a calling.

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Ward expects to work as an ER nurse at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Center City. She looks forward to having the same impact on patients’ lives as nurses did on hers.

“It’s the greatest feeling, being able to be on the other side and to make that full circle,” she said.

Mark Fedorich enjoyed the rush of an emergency as a teen volunteer at a local fire station during his childhood in Upstate New York.

But he ended up working for a real estate company for a couple decades. A layoff during the economic downturn of 2009 prompted him to reconsider his career choices.

“I had that opportunity to reinvent myself and start over,” the 54-year-old said.

He moved closer to his children in South Jersey and began working in health-care jobs: a certified medical assistant in an urgent care clinic, an emergency medical technician in Gloucester Township, and an emergency room and trauma bay tech.

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When Fedorich’s children completed college, he decided to return to school himself to become a nurse. He earned an associate degree from Camden County College, then his bachelor’s from the Rutgers School of Nursing.

“I had to relearn study habits,” he said. “Knock the rust off my brain.”

Fedorich is aware of the challenges ahead of him. Next month he will start working as an ER nurse in Atlantic City for AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center. When he hears about staffing shortages, he feels proud to play a role in solving a health-care problem.

“I can fill one person’s vacancy,” he said. “I can make a small difference at one place in one shift, in one day, that I’m there.”

As a high school student, Morgan Ferriola had the opportunity to shadow nurses in hospital units and said she “just fell in love.”

The 21-year-old from Delaware County was inspired by their empathy. Ferriola attended Widener University, not far from her home, to study nursing.

She met veteran nurses who discouraged her from pursuing the profession. At times, she wondered if she would share the same advice in 15 or 20 years.

But she preferred to listen to the many nurses who welcomed her into the field. In a clinical rotation at Paoli Hospital’s emergency department, she saw a collaborative team with a shared mission.

“They actually were happy to be there,” Ferriola said. “They were happy to do their job.”

She applied for a job at Paoli, and Ferriola is set to start after she takes her licensing exam. She looks forward to the “controlled chaos” of emergency medicine.