Pins and certificates await their owners.

Nursing Coordinator Susan Watson urges the graduates to be agents of change.

Keynote speaker Billie Allard reminded the nurses to have 'reverence and respect' in dealing with patients.

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McCann Technical School held its pinning ceremony for new licensed practical nurses on Thursday night. See more photos here.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Twenty brand-new licensed practical nurses are beginning their careers with some pretty heavy responsibility. They, and others like them, will influence the future of the nation's health care.

"Nurses have a huge opportunity to shape the future of our health-care delivery system," said Billie Lynn Allard, administrative director of outpatient services at Southern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington, at the McCann Technical School's pinning ceremony on Thursday night.

The graduates of the school's LPN program will be joining more than 3 million health-care workers, she said. "You are poised to be significant players in the transformation of health care quality and vision."      

The graduates have already experienced the shifting patterns of the health care field when forced to abruptly change course in their clinical and classroom courses when North Adams Regional Hospital closed in March.

"That is really good preparation for a health career, because health care is rapid, is constantly changing, is asking you to be nimble and ready to change," Allard said. "So this experience has really prepared you for what is ahead."   

Allard, a registered nurse who had worked at NARH for 30 years, including as chief nursing officer, was Thursday's keynote speaker to the 2014 class. The students began the intensive program last January, and proved their ability to balance relationships, family and work responsibilities, said Principal Justin Katz.

"One of the neat things about participating in an intensive cohort-style program such as this is the relationships and networks that you build amongst each other," he said. "I'm sure you've spent more time with this class than with your family over the past year ...  

"Not only are you a part of this group, you're also a part of the alumni that graduated before you. It would be pretty much impossible to find a medical facility without McCann alumni as employees."

McCann had been educating LPNs for years before the program was closed in the mid-1980s. Allard recalled her conversations with then incoming Superintendent James Brosnan in urging the program be reinstituted. It resumed in 2006 but the closure of NARH, where it held classes, and a too-costly alternative to add on to the school nearly sunk the program. Berkshire Medical Center invited the program back on campus after acquiring the property, ensuring the LPN program would continue.

Allard encouraged the new nurses to continue to educate themselves both for their careers and for their patients.

"One thing I feel very strongly is critically important is that nurses should be full partners with physicians and other health-care professionals," she said. Where nurses might once have held back, now they need to speak up. "We are the ones that are at the dead center of patients and families, we are the ones that understand the care needs and we understand how important it is to be patient-centered and be looking and observing and assessing, and letting physicians know what our patients need."

Nurses consistently are named the most trusted professionals, Allard said. "We need to take advantage of that. We need to use our power and influence to help shape a future that will provide the best care and the best practices for our family and friends and for our patients."

She left the graduates with a "top 10" list to keep in mind, from "practice, practice, practice,' to teamwork and professionalism, to QTIP (quit taking it personally), to, No. 1, carving out time to take care of themselves.

"As nurses, we give and give and give," Allard said. "You need to fill up as well."

Mentors, friends and family members participated in pinning the graduates; School Committee Chairman Thomas Mahar shook hands to congratulate each one. Graduate Lola White led the class in the Nurse's Pledge.

Practical Nursing Coordinator Susan A. Watson presented the class awards:

Sandra Poudrier of Becket, Maria Caruso of North Adams and Tomeka Parslow of Pittsfield each earned a Clinical Excellence Award. The Fay Ellen Fosser Memorial Scholarship, in memory of the Clarksburg native and McCann graduate, was presented to Christilyn Moulton and Megan Vallieres, both of North Adams. Catherine Boucher of North Adams received the Highest Academic Achievement and Perfect Attendence awards; Jennifer Sumner of Windsor also earned a Perfect Attendance Award.

Watson sent her students out with the charge to be "agents of change," quoting Mahatma Ghandi: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

"I give you the challenge to follow Ghandi's wisdom," she said. "Go out and change, improve the world of health care. I know you can."

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