VNA seminar series looks at opportunities in home health care

By Kelcy Dolan
Posted 5/19/16

Employers often tell Lawrence Saulnier he has one of the most “interesting résumés” they have ever seen.

Growing up in City Island in the Bronx, Saulnier first became interested in the …

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VNA seminar series looks at opportunities in home health care

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Employers often tell Lawrence Saulnier he has one of the most “interesting résumés” they have ever seen.

Growing up in City Island in the Bronx, Saulnier first became interested in the field of medicine through his Boy Scout troop. He enjoyed learning first aid tricks using ordinary items and old techniques. At 14 he joined his neighborhood’s voluntary ambulance corps. He would eventually train as an EMT and worked for both public and private ambulance services. He had intended to go back to school to become a physician’s assistant, but with financial constraints he joined the police academy instead.

The plan had been to work for six years then go back to school; 20 years later at the age of 40, he finally retired as a lieutenant. During his time in the department he undertook a slew of positions, from working transit, narcotics, even internal affairs for a while.

“I could either work for another 10 years and never work again, or I could fulfill my dream, leave with my pension and start the career I had wanted initially,” Saulnier said.

That was in April of 2007. Saulnier earned a nursing degree in an accelerated program from Dominican College, graduating in 2009.

Although Saulnier wanted to go into critical care, graduating just after the start of the recession left job opportunities far and few between. He was hired pretty quickly for a position in hospice care, and although he would never have believed it before, he loved hospice care.

When Saulnier’s hometown neighborhood began to “change” he and his family moved to Narragansett, and he took a job at South County Hospital as a floating night nurse.

Saulnier said, “I had worked a lifetime of night shifts. I was getting older and it all caught up with me. I wanted a day job.”

He applied for a position at the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) of Care New England in Warwick. He is now the clinical nurse manager for the VNA.

With his diverse background, Saulnier is participating in the VNA’s Nursing in the Community Seminar Series, which invites nurses new and old to explore home health care as a career opportunity.

The series focuses on the future of community-based healthcare as more individuals seek treatment from their homes. Although one seminar has already passed there are two more: one on May 18 and the other on June 14. Each seminar features a keynote speaker, who are well known nursing leaders. Diana Cocozza Martins, Ph.D., RN, associate professor at the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing, and Joanne Costello, Ph.D., MPH, RN, professor at the Rhode Island College School of Nursing, are the next two speakers, respectively. Each seminar counts as one contact hour. Guests can meet with representatives from the VNA and get a more in-depth look at possible opportunities.

Where the keynote speakers focus on the career opportunities, Saulnier also speaks about his personal experience switching over to a home health care career. He said the biggest transition for nurses when they first move into home health care is that you are now in the patient’s home.

“In a hospital they are guests in your house per se, they are a little bit more compliant. In home health care you are in their homes and you can’t dictate their lives. You have to help them with their goals, help them break bad habits, convince them to take better care of themselves,” Saulnier said. “But when you do finally help them reach their goals, whether it’s dressing themselves in the morning or being able to walk to the mailbox, it is so meaningful for both parties. It seems trivial to a healthy person, but you have helped them and they are so grateful.”

He also mentioned that in home healthcare if you need to spend two hours with a patient; visiting nurses build relationships over a longer period of time, especially since hospital stays are becoming, on average, shorter and shorter for patients.

He said, “You can make a difference in people’s lives in so many different ways. Sometimes you might be the only person these patients see week to week.”

The final seminar is Tuesday, June 14 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., with Costello as the keynote speaker. The seminar will take place in the Doctor’s Auditorium at Kent Hospital, 455 Toll Gate Road, Warwick. Be sure to RSVP to Lyndsey Keener at 921-7590 or by emailing seminar@vnacarenewengland.org with the seminar date and your first and last name. For more information visit www.vnacarenewengland.org/jobs/nursing.cfm.

VNA of Care New England is also offering a new Graduate Nursing Residency Program. The program is offered twice a year in both February and September and last about one year. The program is for recent nursing graduates, preferably from a bachelor’s program, who are interested in home health car, willing to work full-time and have passed the RN NCLEX exam. 

For more information contact the Director of Workforce Development and Planning, Jody Jencks, at 680-4348 or www.jajencks@carene.org.

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