October 6, 2009

Jepson heads nursing

Students are legacy for longtime nurse and teacher

By Sam Craig
The Chronicle

     Most kids had dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up, but Doris Jepson actually is exactly what she wanted to be when she grew up.
     “I can remember when I was in seventh grade,” Jepson said, “the instructor went around the room and said, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I said, ‘A nurse.’ That was kind of surprising because there’s nobody in my family that has that kind of background, although I will confess that I did watch some soap operas on TV, like ‘General Hospital.’ That might have had an influence on me.”
     Jepson became a nurse and now, as the new director of Columbia Gorge Community College’s Nursing Program, she’s getting future nurses ready for a career in the health care field. She became the interim director in 2008 after former director Marilyn McGuire-Sessions left the program. On July 1, Jepson was asked by the college to become the full-time director.
     Jepson has a parade of initials following her name — RN (Registered Nurse), CCRN (Critical Care Registered Nurse) and MSN (Master of Science in Nursing). She’s been a nurse for years, but she got into teaching when the opportunity came her way.
     “Things just all kind of came together,” she said. “I’m a firm believer that God moves in your life. The timing has to be right to do certain things. Up until the point when I moved to The Dalles with my husband and family in 1995, I had been a home school mom, I had worked part-time in nursing, I hadn’t really pursued any of my educational goals to go on and get a more advanced degree.”
In 1997, while working at Mid-Columbia Medical Center, she took a second shot at college.
     “The funds and timing just all came together,” she said. “There was a group of nurses here in the gorge region who were looking to go back to get their bachelor’s in science and nursing. I was an associate degree in nursing graduate myself; I worked as a nurse for many years with just the two-year degree.”
     As a group, Jepson and the other nurses went back to school at Oregon Health and Sciences University, pursuing their degrees. While she was back in school, a local, now-familiar center of education helped her out.
     “The cool thing was that some of the co-requisite classes that I needed to take for their program, I could take right here at CGCC,” she said. “I did that while I was taking classes from them.”
     In 2001, after receiving her bachelor’s degree, Jepson saw a new opportunity. CGCC was starting up a new nursing program, and she had the chance to get in on the ground floor. She applied for a job as a part-time instructor and was hired on.
     “Because I had that degree, I was qualified to be a clinical instructor here when the program opened,” she said. “I did that part-time for two years, then, when a full-time skills lab coordinator position came open, I applied and was hired for that. So I’ve been full-time with the college since 2003.”
     After a few years, she found a way to go back to college without having to take a break from her job as a coordinator at the college.
     “While I was doing that,” she said, “a couple of the instructors here were looking to go back and get their master’s degree through an online program, and encouraged me to do so also.”
     In 2005, Jepson began taking online classes from Walden University, finishing with a master of science in nursing degree in August 2007. Then, in 2008, when the director of the nursing department at CGCC, Marilyn McGuire-Sessions, stepped down, the school asked Jepson to temporarily take her place as they searched for a new director.
     On July 1 this year, the college asked her to become the permanent director of the nursing program.
     No longer an instructor, Jepson’s duties have changed over the past few months. Instead of preparing for class each day, she works closely with the 24 students in the nursing program and makes sure everything is running smoothly.
Jepson also spends a few days a month working at MCMC, keeping her skills up to date. She’s expanded the staff of the nursing program, added a medical assisting component and brought on new clinical sites around the area for students to get hands-on experience.
     “I would say, overall, she leads by high-quality example,” said Linda Quackenbush, CGCC Health Occupations Coordinator. “I think her position here is more a labor of love, as opposed to a labor of high-level position, because being the director of the nursing program is not all that glamorous.”
     With high unemployment rates, many without jobs are trying to find a new field of work. Enrollment in nursing programs is on the rise in the U.S., and CGCC has seen a boost in interest, though currently, they have no plans to expand.
     “We take 24 students maximum for each year of the program,” Jepson said. “If we could take more, we would, but it’s a limited entry program. The size of the cohorts that we take is really determined by the size of our community. If we had more students, it would be difficult to find clinical sites for them to do that sort of thing during the year. We don’t want to overburden people and wear out our welcome.”
     For the 24 students who graduate from CGCC with their associate’s degree in nursing each year, there’s a certain pride for Jepson, knowing that they’ll go on to keep Oregon healthy.
     Framed photographs dangle from the walls of the hallway, proudly proclaiming each year’s relatively-small, but tight-knit group of graduates. Many of the 131 nursing program graduates have stayed in the area and been able to find work without much trouble. They — and the ones yet to enroll — will be Jepson’s legacy.
     “Nursing has always been a very honorable and worthwhile profession,” Jepson said. “I love helping people and being a nurse is a wonderful way to do that, to just show the love of God to people.”