Fourth-semester nursing students Alyssa Boyle, Paige Brinkerhoff, Shalyn Henstra and Katie Merrell have been accepted into the Veterans Affairs Student Trainee Experience Program, or VA-STEP. This is a competitive opportunity, providing a year of paid clinical training to Bachelor of Science in Nursing students; it also fulfils the BYU College of Nursing capstone requirement for graduation. These students applied for limited and highly sought-after places in the program, and all four of them were accepted. Paige is excited to be part of the VA-STEP: “I feel like not a lot of people know what it actually entails and how cool it is.” According to these students, these “cool” aspects include flexible work arrangements, excellent mentoring, and meaningful service.
Since 2021, BYU Nursing professors and students have been helping transform mountain rescue so that Hindu pilgrims can worship with increased safety. Part of the broader Mountain People Project founded by nursing professor Craig Nuttall and co-operated with Summers, BYU established the first medically-trained helicopter airlift program in the region to evacuate people to the main trauma center.
