ECU Health offers many opportunities for team members to further their education and pursue their dreams, including the HomeGrown Program and tuition reimbursement. After years of deferring her dream to become a nurse, Michelle Dixon, now a staff nurse IV working in the ECU Health Patient Testing Center, used the HomeGrown Program and tuition reimbursement to receive her associate’s degree in nursing.
Michelle Dixon
When she was in high school, Michelle said she didn’t have many people encouraging her in her education.
“My plan was to be a childcare teacher because I love kids,” she said. But her brother’s mentor, George Lauteres, encouraged her to think about nursing as a career. “He always wanted to see my reports cards and said, ‘Michelle you are smart; you should be a nurse.’ And then he’d bring the newspaper to show me how many nursing jobs there were. He said, ‘You’ll always have a job.’”
After high school, Michelle attended Pitt Community College to complete her prerequisites for the nursing program, but she ended up having to drop out due to changes in her circumstances. She worked in various jobs until a connection through a temp agency in 1998 landed her a position at what was then know as Pitt County Memorial Hospital, now ECU Health, in the Central Services Department, where she worked for eight years.
“But there was a point when I wanted to do more,” Michelle said; and that’s when she thought about her original plan to become a nurse.
She heard about the HomeGrown program through co-workers who were going through the program to become surgical technicians. When her manager in Central Services, Audrey Williams, learned Michelle was interested in a career change, she supported her fully.
“She made it possible for me to work the hours I needed so I could take classes and participate in clinicals,” Michelle said. “She did everything she could to help me, and every time I completed a class, I couldn’t wait to show her my grades. She made me want to be better.”
The HomeGrown Program allows ECU Health team members to go back to school for specific degree programs, including RN, surgical technology or respiratory therapy, while working 20 hours a week and keeping their full salary and benefits. This was enormously helpful to Michelle, who said that without the program, she would not have been able to continue to work while also working toward her degree: “I was able to work 10 hours on Saturdays and 10 on Sundays, which let me take my classes and study and attend clinicals during the week.”
Applying for the program was easy; “it was getting into the program that was the hard part,” she laughed. Through the HomeGrown Program and with her manager’s support, Michelle completed her degree in 2008. After graduation, she joined the 2 South team in Internal Medicine, and she trained as a charge nurse and clinical coach.
In 2020, Michelle again felt there was more she wanted to do, so she returned to school to get her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from the University of North Carolina in Wilmington (UNCW). It was at this point she joined the team in Patient Testing Services. Again, she found herself surrounded by supportive and encouraging mentors. Heather Smith and Glenda Flemmings, both RNs in the Patient Testing Center, encouraged Dixon to complete the Aspiring Nurse Leader Program and pursue certification in Ambulatory Care Nursing.
“They allowed me to take the time I needed, and they encouraged me to get my master’s, which is what I decided to do,” she said. Using ECU Health’s tuition reimbursement, Dixon recently returned to UNCW to get her master’s in Healthcare Administration.
Michelle said without the HomeGrown Program and tuition reimbursement, as well as the support she received from her mentors along the way, she wouldn’t have been able to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse.
“For that initial nursing degree, I had to go to clinicals, and I just couldn’t do that and work 40 hours a week. I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to go back to school and be a nurse.” And she loves being nurse, mostly because of the time she gets to spend with patients. “I feel like I’ve learned as much from them as I have from my education,” she said. “They help me appreciate life and give me a whole new perspective.”
The HomeGrown Program, Michelle said, is important because it helps entry-level team members like her to grow the organization from within.
“This is a way we can grow our own team members and keep them within the organization,” she said. “With the nursing shortage, these types of positions are crucial.” That’s why Michelle wants everyone to know about the HomeGrown Program and tuition reimbursement. “Because of ECU Health, I am the first person in my family of 13 children to graduate from college,” she said. “A lot of people have aspirations like me, but they don’t know the route to get there.”
The HomeGrown Program has been offered at ECU Health for more than 30 years, and candidates are selected through a highly competitive application process. Team members must meet eligibility requirements and go through interviews before being admitted to their program. After successfully graduating, team members have a two-year commitment to work full-time for ECU Health.