Studies show that the United States will be short one million nurses by 2020. As a result, the need to “promote” the career of nurses has never been greater. The Memorial Healthcare System recently participated in the tri-country program, “A Day in the Life of a Nurse.”

Darlene Harris, A.R.N.P., Stroke Program Coordinator, takes McArthur High School students on a tour of Memorial Regional Hospital, stopping here to monitor procedures in the Holding Nursery.

Sixty junior and senior high school students were specially selected by their school’s health science coordinator because of their special interest in nursing. They shadowed nurses at Memorial Regional Hospital, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, Memorial Hospital Pembroke and Memorial Hospital Miramar. They got a first-hand glimpse of a variety of areas such as the Emergency Department, Radiology, Endoscopy and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The program—in its 10th year—gave more than 1,000 students throughout Broward, Dade and Palm Beach counties an opportunity to experience “A Day in the Life of a Nurse.”