Nurse Summer Training Program

The NSTP is a paid three-to-four week clinical elective for Army ROTC nurse cadets. Attendance is voluntary. Our affiliated nursing school awards academic credit for this program

This elective is conducted at Army hospitals in the United States, Germany, and Korea. You get paid while attending NSTP during the same summer as Advanced Camp, which is usually between the Junior and Senior year of college.

During the NSTP clinical elective, you will receive "hands on" experience under the direct supervision of an Army Nurse Corps officer who works with you one-on-one. Regular coaching sessions enhances your progress, while also providing feedback about your performance.

While you follow the same duty schedule as your sponsor, you could receive training in such areas as patient assessment, planning of patient care, nutrition maintenance and feeding techniques, range of motion and mobility, medication administration, emergency procedures, intravenous (IV) therapy, and other special procedures and techniques.



Cadet Perspective on NSTP
By: CDT Katie Casper

This summer after completing Warrior Forge I spent three weeks in Texas at Fort Hood.  I was assigned to work in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Darnell Army Community Hospital.  During these three weeks I worked one-on-one with CPT Kraus who was my preceptor. I worked the same hours as my preceptor and the first week we worked nights.  It was hard to get used to the schedule at first, but by the second week we were working the PM shift and that was a lot easier.  By the second week, the ICU was full (there is an 8 bed capacity) and we were busy. If I wasn't doing a lab draw, monitoring vitals on a post-operative recovery patient, doing a 12 lead EKG or starting an IV, I was in a patient's room helping them relax and be more comfortable.
Besides working with those patients in the ICU, I also had a chance to work with soldiers coming home from Iraq.  I had two opportunities to go out to the flight line and bring in soldiers who were flying home. I don't think I will ever forget the second soldier that we brought in.  During this second trip we made we brought in a solider who had been wounded by an AK-47.  We brought him into the hospital and I helped with his dressing change. He had sustained injuries to both his arms.  The doctor packed his wounds with gauze and we took him up to his room.  I saw him over the next few days and I got to meet his parents and his fiancé.  About a week later he was sent home. Both he and his parent thanked me for everything I did.
I learned a lot at NSTP, especially clinical skills and about the important role that Army Nurses have in the healing process.