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From Student to Caregiver: A high schooler’s path at Winona Health

August 6, 2024

Abbey Gardner Cna Hallway WebWe Are Winona. And people have been caring for their fellow community members at Winona Health for 130 years.

That means for generation after generation, there have been compassionate people in our community choosing healthcare as their life’s work.

Some people choose healthcare because they’ve witnessed a parent or family member’s career and the incomparable rewards of caring for others. Some because their interest was piqued when a friend or loved one needed medical care. And some choose a career in healthcare after getting a glimpse into caregiving as they are considering their options for the future. That’s why we partner with area schools in various ways – to give students a chance to learn about the many healthcare opportunities available.

Meet Abbey Gardner, CNA. Abbey joined the caregivers at Winona Health after her experience participating in Cotter High School’s Job Shadow Course.

“While rotating through the units at Winona Health each week, I would ask the nurse I was shadowing about their journey of how they got to where they are now and if they had any advice for high schoolers or college students. A very common response was that they became a CNA before going into nursing school or their nursing field, which helped them to understand patient care and get that experience before jumping into a nursing position. Many nurses recommended Lake Winona Manor in Winona Health, as they said it is a great environment.”

Read more about Abbey’s path to being a caregiver.

Q & A with Abbey Gardner, CNA

I took the Certified Nursing Assistant course that Cotter offered during the 2023 fall semester. After getting my CNA license, I wanted to get as much experience and exposure to the nursing field as I could before going to college to major in nursing. I have always had an interest in pediatric nursing and was interested in gaining insight into that field during the Winona Health job shadow. The job shadow course also offered many different units, allowing me to explore what else the nursing field has to offer.

The job shadow course consisted of a 10-week rotation through up to nine units in Winona Health. We would be at Winona Health every Thursday from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., following around a Nursing Assistant in one of the nine units. We were able to get a broad perspective of the nursing field from this course because of the many units we were able to shadow. The units we rotated through were the Emergency Department, Urgent Care, Medical Surgery, Family Birth Center, Intensive Care Unit, Adith Miller and Roger Metz, Watkins Senior Living, and Lake Winona Manor.

Doing a job shadow is a great way to navigate whether the nursing field is the right path for you. Getting exposure to real experiences and patients rather than just learning about it helped me to see if this is a path I see myself on in the future. At Winona Health, there are many units I was able to experience and not only was I able to watch the different patient cares in each unit, the staff were always willing to walk me through the process of the cares, allowing me to understand the specific unit more.

One thing that stood out to me was how willing the patients and staff were to allow me to be with them. Coming into the job shadow, I was nervous that staff would not want a high schooler following them around since we were not allowed to have any hands-on experience. The same went for patients, I was nervous they would not want a high schooler standing behind their nurse watching us help them. However, from my first day shadowing to my last, the staff were always more than willing to explain what treatment/care they were doing and why they were doing it and the patients were accepting of me being in the room while they were being cared for. This made a huge difference in my experience at Winona Health, as I was able to learn and see more of the nursing field than I even expected!

This experience was very reassuring to me, in showing me that this was the right field for me. I loved every experience I got to witness and every unit I got to shadow in! I have always been interested in Pediatrics, and I still am, but many other fields intrigued me as well, one of them being the Emergency Department.

While rotating through the units each week, I would ask the nurse I was shadowing about their journey of how they got to where they are now and if they had any advice for high schoolers or college students. A very common response was that they became a CNA before going into nursing school or their nursing field, which helped them to understand patient care and get that experience before jumping into a nursing position. Many nurses recommended Lake Winona Manor in Winona Health, as they said it is a great environment of staff and patients and very accommodating to high schoolers. Soon after hearing this response many times, I applied to Lake Winona Manor as a CNA and got the job. Once I rotated through Lake Winona Manor during my job shadow, I was already an employee about to start training and got to get extra experience before going in as an employee.

I would 100% recommend this course/opportunity to anyone thinking about going into the nursing field. Getting experience in nursing and the different fields it has to offer is a great opportunity, especially for high schoolers. I am very grateful to have had the chance to experience as much as I did, especially only being a high schooler, and Winona Health couldn’t have made it a better experience by allowing me to have every opportunity to see as much as possible!

Abbey graduated from Cotter High School in May and she’s headed to Minnesota State University, Mankato this fall to major in Nursing. She’ll continue to be a caregiver at Lake Winona Manor during some weekends and school breaks.

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