MORGANTOWN — Austin VanScyoc slept like a baby through the whole thing Sunday afternoon, but don’t give him a hard time.
After all, he is a baby. Born March 28, in fact.
And on the afternoon of Austin’s arrival 10 days ago, his dad, Corey VanScyoc, had to break away and take a final exam — so he could be at Sunday’s celebration at Lakeview Golf Resort and Spa.
The occasion was the pinning ceremony for the Class of 2019 nursing class at West Virginia Junior College.
Corey was among the 32 graduates who went forth.
His wife (and Austin’s mom) Ashley, affixed the ceremonial pin to the front of his pristine white uniform.
Ashley is a nurse and Corey has worked in the field for
10 years.
He started as an X-ray technician and later became a cardiovascular interventional technologist, the professional who helps with the implantation of stents for heart patients.
“Ashley inspired me,” he said. “And I just liked working with patients.”
“Nursing is pretty much all I ever wanted to do,” Ashley said.
It is a calling, Julie Whetsell said.
Whetsell, who directs nursing programs at the college, has a long career in the field, working with everyone from dialysis patients to those admitted to the intensive care unit.
She punctuated her remarks by holding up an old-school nurse’s cap, the kind that aren’t part of the uniform these days.
The accessory is still an apt metaphor, she said, since nurses wear many caps: From the clinician cap to the communicator cap.
Whetsell told the graduates to be prepared to repeatedly change caps — “Every day, every shift and every 46 seconds, because that’s what nurses do.”
Graduates gave rueful asides about too much coffee, too many all-nighters and the shock of awareness that can only come from a real-world clinical rotation.
Class president Mattilyn Poling got a laugh when she remembered her first-ever round on a maternity ward.
“We witnessed the miracle of life,” she said. “Not without nausea.” (And yes, she’s going to work in the delivery room.)
The new nurses gathered with their families for hugs, handshakes and selfies after the pinning was done.
Austin, meanwhile, was still snoozing. Maybe.
When Ashley said, “Now we need a doctor in the family,” Corey caught it.
“Did anyone else see his eyebrow go up?”
JBissett@DominionPost.com
TWITTER @DominionPostWV
