Saint Leo University has never offered health professions programs — until very recently.
In 2019, Dr. Kathleen Van Eerden was charged with developing a nursing program for the private Catholic school in Pasco County. She started by identifying four core tenets for the curriculum: evidence-based practice, interprofessional communication, culture of health and — most importantly, perhaps — clinician well-being.
“We had identified clinician well-being early on in our program development, and we did that because the data showed a number of nurses were leaving the profession within the first year. They were burned out. They couldn’t cope. They weren’t resilient,” she says. “Our hope is, obviously, the students that go through our program have really long, enjoyable careers in nursing, and that they have the skills to be able to deal with the challenges. So, the curriculum infuses that throughout many of our content areas.”
Van Eerden helped the fledging program secure a clinical affiliation agreement with AdventHealth West Florida, and then a similar agreement with BayCare. The university also obtained written agreements with other local organizations that could contribute to student experiences, including long-term care agencies like Blue Heron Senior Living in Wesley Chapel, a dozen Pasco County schools and community agencies like Sunrise of Pasco County’s Domestic and Sexual Violence Center.
After years of work and approvals, Saint Leo officially launched the first class of its nursing program in 2021, creating its College of Health Professions for which Van Eerden is now dean. The students officially entered their core nursing curriculum in August 2023, guided by five faculty hires.
Last spring, the nursing program formed a Dedicated Education Unit with AdventHealth Zephyrhills. In the traditional clinical model, nursing mentors are spread between eight nursing students, and each student is assigned to one patient. With Saint Leo’s model, students work alongside nurses with their entire caseload of patients for 12-hour shifts. The partnership expanded this year to include AdventHealth Dade City.
“The Dedicated Education Unit at AdventHealth was one of the most impactful parts of my training,” says Ava Valenti, a Class of 2025 Saint Leo nursing student. “I was able to work one-on-one with a nurse mentor, which gave me continuity and a deeper understanding of day-to-day nursing tasks. The most important part was gaining confidence in my clinical judgment and critical thinking skills.”
The nursing program moved into its permanent home — a 4,256-sq.-ft. space on the second floor of Saint Leo’s Benedictine Hall — this February. A $681,000 renovation added two conference rooms, two classrooms, five offices, three rooms with patient simulators, one assessment room, a nursing lab and one simulation control room.
By the end of its first five years of operation, Saint Leo’s nursing program is expected to add nearly 200 nurses to the workforce. More than 115 pre-nursing freshmen entered the program this fall — a record number of enrollees to date.