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Sarah Rockecharlie has known she wanted to be a nurse since she was 10. At that time, doctors told her she has type 1 diabetes, a turning point she describes as a “life changing diagnosis.” Through countless appointments, the care and attention she received from nurses stood out. “The nurses had a very positive influence on how I dealt with it,” she recalls. “That’s why I wanted to go into pediatrics. I can pay it forward and be there for children who are in similar positions.”

Rockecharlie will have the chance to do just that after she graduates from UVA School of Nursing in May 2024: She’s been hired to join the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) as a Clin 1 after completing a summer externship there in 2023.

The goal of the Nursing Externship Program is to nurture the next generation of nurses. Students entering their final year of nursing school benefit from eight to 12 weeks of supervised, on-the-job experience, weekly educational opportunities, and training — while UVA Health teams and patients benefit from the additional support.

Externs are welcomed warmly, says Inpatient Nurse Director Debbie Lewandowski, RN, MBA, BSN, OCN. “Creating a culture of belonging and learning helps them thrive as quality nurses,” she explains. 

Lewandowski says 85 externs joined the program in 2023. The students have the opportunity to work in 25 diverse specialties including the Emergency Department, outpatient clinics, acute care, and post-anesthesia care. A good percentage are later hired for full-time positions upon graduation. “The experience we provide is essential to their professional formation and has a big impact on how they perceive UVA Health and stay at UVA Health,” Lewandowski says. “The crucial factor of belonging launches them successfully and prepares them to adapt in the real world of healthcare.”

In fact, the externship helps UVA Health expedite the hiring process, says Inpatient Nurse Manager Robin Longo, MSN, RN-C, who is part of the team trialing a “rapid hire” option. “We can observe the extern at the bedside and watch their growth over the summer and interaction with the staff and families. If we have seen an extern excel in this role during the summer and they have a desire to work on our unit after graduation, we are bypassing the formal 'new grad interview' and moving right to offer,” she explains. “This secures the new grad a position on their desired unit and saves the nurse manager from having to interview.”

The weekly education sessions and opportunity to work the actual schedule of an RN — three 12-hour shifts, including day and night shifts — appealed to Rockecharlie. She was originally assigned to a surgery trauma unit, but shortly before the externship started, she was switched to the PICU — good news, considering her longtime desire to work in pediatrics. “When I found that out, I was ecstatic,” she says. She was already excited to be working at UVA Health over the summer, but the PICU placement was “the perfect opportunity to see if it was something I liked.”

She liked it even more than she expected to. Her preceptor, Anna Vidlak, RN, a recent UVA grad herself, gave Rockecharlie a clear sense of the types of patients she’d be interacting with and insights into what the job would entail. “To see how the nursing program at UVA had prepared her to be a nurse helped me think about how the nursing program was preparing me,” Rockecharlie says.

Even though she was only there for nine weeks, Rockecharlie quickly became part of the team. “I felt like everyone appreciated me being there,” she says. “I felt like a valued member of the unit.”

In August 2023, the application process opened for externs who wanted to work in the same unit where they had completed their externship, and Rockecharlie jumped at the opportunity to apply. She interviewed for a full-time role less than a week later and was hired shortly after that.

Rockcharlie knows patients and families in the PICU face a lot of uncertainty, and she recognizes she won’t be able to make everything better for them. Instead, she’s focused on making small improvements for her patients and their loved ones as an RN. “My guiding philosophy is to leave them better than I found them,” she says.

She’s also looking at intensive care work as an opportunity to practice everything she’s been trained to do, a powerful perspective shared with her by another nurse, Frankie Allen, RN, early on in Rockcharlie's externship. Allen’s words stuck. “I go to nursing school for four years and put in all this hard work — I want to make sure wherever I’m working, I’m using all of those skills and knowledge to the fullest extent.”