Kim Hoover, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association Foundation, said the program gives students an opportunity to experience hand-on nursing before graduation while helping hospitals build a pipeline of future employees.
"They gain so much more confidence," Hoover said. "When they go into the last year of school, they really are ahead of the game."
The externship has expanded steadily over the past several years. Hoover said participation has grown from roughly 500 students a few years ago to about 550 last year before reaching 592 this summer. Survey data also shows that between 85% and 90% of participants say they would like to work at the hospital where they completed their externship, creating a valuable recruitment tool for healthcare systems.
Mississippi hospitals have increasingly relied on the program to recruit new nurses amid nationwide workforce shortages.
At St. Dominic Health in Jackson, Director of Clinical Education Theilet Washington said the experience allows students to work side-by-side with registered nurses in a way traditional clinical rotations cannot.
Unlike many nursing school clinicals that last four to eight hours, externs work full 12-hour hospital shifts, administer medications under supervision, assist with patient care and gain exposure to emergency situations.
"It gives them the most realistic version of what the new graduate will experience once they graduate," Washington said. "They come in with confidence because they've already had that hands-on experience."
The program has also become an important retention strategy.
Washington said many of St. Dominic's externs remain with the hospital as nurse technicians before returning after graduation as registered nurses. Students who complete externships in specialized units such as emergency medicine, labor and delivery or intensive care often have an advantage when applying for those positions after graduation.
For nursing students, the paid experience provides more than a résumé boost.
Olivia Dutro, a recent Holmes Community College graduate who completed her externship at St. Dominic before becoming a registered nurse, said the program allowed her to focus entirely on learning.
"The externship being paid allows you to put your whole focus into learning everything you can learn as an extern," Dutro said. "You don't have to worry about keeping another job to pay bills."
At Delta Health System in Greenville, Student Nurse Externship Coordinator Cassie Montgomery knows the program's value firsthand.
Montgomery completed the externship herself 17 years ago and never left the hospital.
"This is a great recruitment method," she said. "I'm still here."
This summer, Delta Health System hosted six student nurses, and two had already expressed interest in continuing to work there while finishing nursing school. Of nine externs who participated last summer, six have already returned as graduate nurses, Montgomery said.
Student Destiny Ward, a Greenville resident studying at Mississippi Delta Community College, said the externship helped her explore multiple nursing specialties while confirming she chose the right profession.
"It made me want to do this more," Ward said. "This is my calling."
Ward encouraged other nursing students to participate.
"If you really want to get your feet in the door and see if this is for you, I think you should try," she said. "It will get you ahead for sure."
Hoover said expanding the program remains a priority, particularly for rural hospitals that may lack funding to support paid externships.
"Our priority right now is really to get funding for the hospitals that right now are unable to do that," Hoover said. "We want to be able to spread the student nurse externship to every corner of the state."
