Student Spotlight: Jessica Montena

• Major: Nursing
• High School: Cicero-North Syracuse, class of 1995

Jessica Montena found her second career while helping take care of a family member. Montena had spent 5 years teaching English at Cortland High School when she decided to home school their daughter. During the home schooling period, her husband's grandmother needed to be moved from Rochester to Syracuse. Her medical treatment included the PACE program which provides all-inclusive care for the elderly. "I'm a huge proponent of it because it allows seniors to stay in their homes as long as they can. This is when I got interested in nursing."

Montena started searching for Nursing programs. She had earned her teaching degree from SUNY Oneonta and preferred to stay in the State University of New York system. The price of an OCC education caught her eye and the Nursing program's track record sold her. "There was an excellent success rate with the NCLEX (the nursing licensure exam). OCC's most recent pass rate was 95% and the previous year it was 100%. Both were higher than the state average and the national average."

With her research behind her Montena started taking classes at OCC in the spring 2018 semester and gained an immediate appreciation for the faculty. "Our professors are amazingly encouraging, work so hard to help us to be safe nurses, and to teach us what we need to know. They're always here to help when we need them." Montena also learned faculty had first-hand knowledge of the subject matter. "The majority of them still practice in the hospitals. They know what we'll see. We usually do our clinicals on the floors they work on so they are very familiar with what it's like. That's incredibly important."

During this past summer Montena worked in the transitional care unit at SUNY Upstate Medical University's Community campus in the transitional care unit. It's a short-term rehab floor where doctors and nurses help inpatients go home safely. During her time there she helped solve a problem which non-English speaking patients were experiencing. When a video interpreter was required and patients needed to wear headphones, medical personnel in the room would be unable to hear both ends of the conversation. Montena used an audio splitter which separated the audio into two paths so both the patient and the nurse could wear headphones and hear the entire conversation. She told her supervisor and her solution became regular practice there. "I thought it was a very little thing but I was empowered by the support I've received at OCC to practice more independently in all areas. Our faculty demonstrates the nurse you want to be. I can't say enough good things about them."

Montena will earn her degree next May. She currently volunteers at hospice as a family caregiver and is interested in becoming a hospice nurse. She's also intrigued with the possibility of returning to teaching as a nursing educator. "I would love to teach here and be a clinical educator in the hospitals. I didn't realize how much teaching is part of nursing. Besides keeping people safe, educating patients is our most important mission. It's better to keep people out of the hospital by helping them better manage their diet, their lifestyle and their stress level through education."

As she works toward her next degree and her next career Montena is eternally grateful to those closest to her. "My husband, daughter, and parents have been incredibly supportive on my journey. Nursing school is a family affair. This is the hardest thing I've ever done academically and I couldn't have done it without them."