Paradise Valley Community College’s Block 3 nursing students spent two days last month delivering more than 400 Covid-19 vaccines to patients at the Abrazo West clinic and are scheduled to assist Abrazo West with more February 19-20.
“We feel incredibly proud and lucky to be helping the community in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Nick DeFalco, PVCC Nursing Program Director. “Our nursing students are learning the vaccination procedures, documentation, preparation, and administration of the vaccine along with gaining an understanding of the system-wide processes.”
PVCC’s nursing program has made great strides in recent months. Construction began on the expansion of our existing Health Science (HS) nursing building in November 2020, and is making great progress. It’s exciting to see the brick and mortar coming to life. This project has been a collaborative planning process with the Nursing faculty, facilities, IT, and the Workforce and Economic Development department at the District office. The expansion will help serve nursing students in the northern part of Maricopa county.
In Fall 2019, PVCC, along with Gateway Community College, were awarded a $4 million grant from the Arizona Governor’s grant to help expand their respective nursing programs. The grant will help PVCC expand their existing nursing program by 10% each year while also providing training for 100 incumbent nurses a year. More than 1,600 students are waitlisted for the Maricopa Colleges Nursing program, and with the current pandemic, this program expansion will provide both new and incumbent nurses the opportunity to expand their skills for the workforce.