A career change turned out to be the right move for Allie Gropp.Leaving behind a career in marketing in New York City, she decided to attend nursing school at Palm Beach Atlantic University. She wanted do something more fulfilling with her life, she said.
This spring, on the night before her graduation from PBA, Gropp learned that she was selected as Student Nurse of the Year by the Palm Healthcare Foundation. The Princeton, NJ native said that the award came as a huge surprise, and that she was thrilled to be surrounded by family and her professors that evening at The Breakers in Palm Beach.
“I had the most important people in my life there,” she said. “That made all the difference in the world.”
This was the second consecutive year in which a PBA student has received the foundation’s Student Nurse of the Year award. Ana Salguero, who works at Good Samaritan Medical Center, received it in 2012.
Gropp, who now works at Jupiter Medical Center, wasn’t the only PBA graduate recognized that evening. Daphne Jordan, a 2010 PBA graduate who now serves as chest pain coordinator at Good Samaritan, received the foundation’s Rising Star Award.
Jordan, a Palm Beach Gardens resident, began her career at Good Samaritan working on the oncology floor. In 2011 she enrolled in the Emerging Nurse Leader Program in Administration and Finance at Florida Atlantic University.“I wanted to be a change agent to advocate for nursing,” said Jordan, who said that Good Samaritan Chief Nursing Officer Angela Prestia and Director of the Emergency Department Fred Mollica have mentored her during her journey.
In her current position, she coordinates the care between Emergency Medical Services, the Emergency Department and the Cardiac Catheterization Lab. She has helped to improve the care of acute coronary syndrome patients by working to gain chest pain accreditation for the hospital. It received the accreditation this summer.
In addition, she keeps in close contact with her professors at Palm Beach Atlantic and enjoys helping them in any way she can. She also mentors some of the nursing students at PBA by giving them encouragement to succeed, she said.
“I have certainly come a long way from the painfully shy nursing student I was when I began the program,” she said. “The mentorship and encouragement of the professors have helped me to be where I am today, and I will never forget what they have done for me. The Palm Healthcare Rising Star Award is such an honor to me, and I am so proud to have my accomplishments recognized.”
Dr. Joanna Masella, dean of the School of Nursing at Palm Beach Atlantic, said she viewed Jordan and Gropp’s double achievement as a validation of the superior work done by PBA graduates in the community.
“They continue to excel and are seen as ‘rising stars’ like Daphne,” Dr. Masella said. “Allie will continue in that tradition as she embarks on her professional career. We are proud of our PBA nurses and grateful to be part of this School of Nursing family.”
Palm Beach Atlantic’s School of Nursing offers a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing (B.S.N.) and is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and the Florida Board of Nursing. The School of Nursing prepares professional, competent nurses who are reflective, inquiring and able to apply nursing theory and process along with technical nursing skills within the context of the Christian worldview. The school, located in Oceanview Hall on the University’s West Palm Beach campus, features a state-of-the-art nursing skills lab and partnerships with more than six local hospitals, which provides a wide variety of clinical nursing experiences for students.
