This article was contributed by Shelbourn Stevens, prior Senior VP and President of Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center and Coastal Market.

Novant Health is proud to be the largest employer in southeastern North Carolina. Anytime you go to church, a concert or a sporting event, you’re likely to be in the company of one or more of our team members. 

We spend our professional lives taking care of you and your families when you need us most, and we spend our free time next to you, helping make Wilmington and its surrounding communities a friendly, vibrant place to live.

And while our team members seem to be everywhere, we are always looking for more talented people to join us. In particular, we need more great nurses and other clinical specialists. 

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing experts were predicting a shortage of nurses in North Carolina and across the country. The pandemic caused that shortage to happen even sooner. We have felt that deficit in the Coastal region, and we cherish our nurses who have continued to care for our community during these challenging times.

At Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center, we maintain a strong connection with nursing schools across the region, including Cape Fear Community College and the University of North Carolina Wilmington. And Novant Health has developed a program to bring more international nurses to the Carolinas. This summer, we added more than 100 nursing school graduates, nearly 100 experienced nurses and more than 300 travel nurses to ensure that our community continues to receive safe, quality care. We also continue to recruit and hire nurse aides, who support our nurses and allow them to spend more time doing the work that only they can do. 

But having the right number of team members today does not guarantee our future. So, we have developed programs designed to recruit more professionals into healthcare fields and help those who are already working in healthcare to advance their careers.

Students in many programs at our local colleges gain valuable firsthand experience at our facilities. They learn about our mission and our commitment to quality, and many of them join our team full-time when they graduate.

We also have programs in place where we help our team members transition from a non-clinical position into a nurse aide role. And our Upward Mobility program provides financial assistance to help our nurse aides earn their nursing degrees. Through the NHRMC Foundation, we present several annual scholarships to team members pursuing nursing degrees.

But that’s not all.

Our Healthcare Explorers program introduces area high school students to careers in healthcare. They learn about the vast range of careers, meet the professionals and ask questions. We hope this program inspires students to consider healthcare careers and makes sure they know Novant Health is an organization devoted to diversity, inclusion and health equity. 

We want them to consider healthcare careers. Even if they enter the medical field and don’t come to work for us, they are still in a position to make our community healthier. And that’s the ultimate goal.

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Shelbourn Stevens is the prior Senior VP and President of Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center and Coastal Market. During his 30-year tenure with Novant Health, he has worked in a wide variety of departments and held numerous leadership roles, including president and chief operating officer of Brunswick Medical Center for many years. Stevens played an integral part in the transition from the original Brunswick Community Hospital to its new, state-of-the-art facility in 2011. Stevens is accountable for the region along with having other systemwide responsibilities across Novant Health.