The consequences of improper health care training are not lost on Dr. Meg Zomorodi. It was her reality when she lost her mother to a medical error. Now the associate provost for Interprofessional Health Initiatives at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Zomorodi turned her reality into reformation.
She co-created and teaches Biology 119, Experiencing Health Professions: A Service-Learning Partnership for Pre-Health Students. This course, first offered in the 2024 fall semester, trains undergraduate college students to serve as hospital sitters who help keep patients safe.
“My mom died of a health care error where somebody didn’t respond in an appropriate way,” Zomorodi said. “So to have created something that kind of saves another person’s life indirectly is a cool full-circle moment for me.”
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While the passing of her mother gave Zomorodi a passion for improving health care education, the pandemic propelled her into action.
Zomorodi co-developed the course in response to the nursing shortage brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, an estimated 100,000 nurses left the field during the COVID-19 pandemic and an additional 610,338 registered nurses plan to leave nursing by 2027.
This semester, 41 UNC students act as patient sitters, a role traditionally filled by nurses and certified nursing assistants, to help relieve some of the stress on hospital nursing staff. The job requires student sitters to work in lower-acuity roles, supervising patients who cannot independently care for themselves, such as older patients in cognitive decline.
“I would like to scale it up right now and offer this program beyond UNC,” Zomorodi said.
The first two weeks of class are designated for training students in areas including CPR certification, crisis prevention and intervention training and other clinical skills such as phlebotomy (drawing blood). During this time students are also taught safety protocols including completing environmental surveys before each shift which requires that they check for and remove any items that could cause bodily harm. They learn how to maintain constant observation of the patient while protecting patient dignity and having clear access to exits at all times.
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“It is as much about keeping you safe as it is about keeping them safe,” Michele Ream, a registered nurse and clinical nurse educator who helps teach the course, said.
Michele Ream demonstrates proper procedure for interacting with certain patients during a hospital sitters shift. Photo courtesy of Joseph Macia
The course also requires students to complete 24 hours of observation with a trained sitter where they learn how to draw blood and finish checkoffs that determine if they are able to perform the role. Students also study conflict and critical incident stress debriefing among other training requirements.
After training, students gather every Monday with a health professions adviser and a faculty member from the School of Nursing. During these sessions, the class discusses communication challenges and conflicts they may have encountered as a sitter. They also cover how students can relate their experiences back to the competencies they need for professional schools.
“We teach them not only what to do and not do in a patient sitter role, but ways that you can be an empathetic presence because sometimes these patients are confused,” Zomorodi said. “So how do you calm them down? How do you engage them? How do you keep yourself safe?”
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Zomorodi said students are required to wear red scrubs to help identify them along with wearing a whistle in case of an emergency. They are also taught to press the code blue button when necessary — a training procedure that in the past, has helped a student sitter save a patient’s life.
Safety protocols such as these help the program succeed. So far, the program has provided 15 out of the 26 students in last fall’s pilot program with jobs at the hospital, according to Zomorodi. However, some hospital employees still have concerns such as where student patient sitters are placed in the hospital if there are not clear boundaries.
Biology 119 student reviews training modules. Photo courtesy of Joseph Macia
“I do feel there definitely should be limits on which units they can help on and which places they are safe to be,” Raygan Hawkins, a UNC student and registered CNA working for UNC Hospitals, said.
Hawkins, whose job includes patient sitting, said she felt student patient sitters should remain in lower-acuity roles such as caring for older patients, which Zomorodi emphasized is one of student sitters’ responsibilities.
“I think it would be very helpful for [student] patient sitters to help nursing homes or maybe even inpatient surgical places where [patients] are bedridden but they are also completely competent and that way if they need help you can alert someone,” Hawkins said.
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Justin Gettings, an assistant professor at UNC and doctor within the departments of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine at UNC Hospitals, agrees with Hawkins’ perspective that sitters can be valuable in specific settings.
“I could see a sitter really being helpful with an elderly patient or a demented patient,” Gettings said. “Those patients are going to want to wander, they’re going to leave, they’re going to need someone that can be calm and reassuring.”
While student sitters can have a useful role, Gettings emphasized the importance of knowing one’s limitations when working in health care.
“Knowing your scope is so important in medicine, so knowing what I’m trained to do and what I feel comfortable doing is really a critical step in anyone’s training in the medical field,” Gettings said. “So as long as the sitter knows what they’re there to do and feels confident in sort of implementing the next steps that they would need to get more higher level help, then I think it’s a reasonable thing.”
Zomorodi said students are not allowed on the psychiatric floor nor are they allowed to serve as a patient sitter for other UNC students or faculty members. However, as Zomorodi considers expanding the program, health care workers such as Hawkins emphasize ensuring certain training requirements, such as training for crisis prevention and intervention, remain in place.
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Crisis prevention and intervention training can look different depending on the role of the health care worker. However, the central focus is de-escalating situations in a non-violent manner, according to the Crisis Prevention Institute.
“I would never say I felt unprepared,” Mallory Tadlock, a current UNC student and former Biology 119 patient sitter, said. “I think the modules in the training we had to go through really helped me in the scenarios. So that really helped with my comfort level.”
The student patient sitters program has not only helped students with their comfort levels but also reaffirmed their confidence within the medical field in the future.
“I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted to pursue in the future [which is] really hard to know. So without having any experience, I found it such a great resource,” Tadlock said.
Zomorodi said she hopes to offer this program to rural communities where there is a significant number of students applying to the health professions. She wants to work with partners such as UNC Pembroke and UNC Wilmington.
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Based on Tadlock and others’ feedback, implementation of this program at other hospitals could have a large impact on health care experiences for patients and students.
“The number one thing that we have heard from our nursing colleagues in the professional schools that students are applying to, or even our medical school colleagues, is if you can do patient sitting, you probably can do anything,” Zomorodi said.
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ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (AP) — She had worked 22 days straight in her job as a technician at an engine…
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (AP) — She had worked 22 days straight in her job as a technician at an engine plant to save up, and now Daijah Bryant could finally do what she was putting off: Christmas shopping.
Bryant pushed her cart out of a Walmart in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and loaded her sedan’s backseat with bags of gifts. While they would soon bring joy to her friends and family, it was difficult for the 26-year-old to feel good about the purchases.
“Having to pay bills, if you happen to pay rent and try to do Christmas all at the same time, it is very, very hard,” she said with exasperation.
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Ahead of President Donald Trump’s Friday evening visit to Rocky Mount, some residents say they are feeling an economic squeeze that seems hard to escape. The uneasy feeling spans political affiliation in the town, which is split between two largely rural and somewhat impoverished counties, although some were more hopeful than others that there are signs of reprieve on the horizon.
This will be Trump’s second event this month aimed at championing his economic policies ahead of a consequential midterm election next year, both held in presidential battleground states. Similar to Trump’s earlier stop in Pennsylvania, Rocky Mount sits in a U.S. House district that has been historically competitive. But earlier this year, the Republican-controlled legislature redrew the boundaries for the eastern North Carolina district to favor their party as part of Trump’s push to have GOP-led states gerrymander their congressional districts to help his party retain its House majority for the last half of his term.
Rocky Mount may be in a politically advantageous location, but the hardships its residents report mirror the tightening financial strains many Americans say they are feeling, with high prices for groceries, housing and utilities among their top concerns. Polls show persistently high prices have put Americans in a grumpy mood about the state of the economy, which a large majority say is performing poorly.
Trump has insisted the economy is trending upward and the country will see some relief in the new year and beyond. In some cases, he has dismissed affordability concerns and encouraged Americans to decrease their consumption.
‘Without the businesses, it’s dead’
Crimson smokestacks tower over parts of downtown Rocky Mount, reminding the town’s roughly 54,000 residents of its roots as a once-booming tobacco market. Through the heart of downtown, graffiti-covered trains still lug along on the railroad tracks that made Rocky Mount a bustling locomotive hotspot in the last century.
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Those days seem long gone for some residents who have watched the town change over decades. Rocky Mount has adapted by tapping into other industries such as manufacturing and biopharmaceuticals, but it’s also had to endure its fair share of challenges. Most recently, financial troubles in the city’s government have meant higher utility prices for residents.
The city has been investing to try to revitalize its downtown, but progress has been slow. Long stretches of empty storefronts that once contained restaurants, furniture shops and drug stores line the streets. Most stores were closed Thursday morning, and not much foot traffic roamed the area.
That’s left Lucy Slep, who co-owns The Miner’s Emporium jewelry store with her husband, waiting for Trump’s promised “Golden Age of America.”
The jewelry store has been in downtown Rocky Mount for nearly four decades, just about as long as the 64-year-old said she has lived in the area. But the deterioration of downtown Rocky Mount has spanned at least a decade, and Slep said she’s still hoping it will come back to life.
“Every downtown in every little town is beautiful,” she said. “But without the businesses, it’s dead.”
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Slep’s store hasn’t escaped the challenges other Rocky Mount small businesses have endured. Instead of buying, more people have recently been selling their jewelry to the shop, Slep said.
Customers have been scarce. About a week out from Christmas, the store — with handmade molded walls and ceilings resembling cave walls — sat empty aside from the rows of glass cases containing jewelry. It’s been hard, Slep said, but she and her husband are trying to make it through.
“This year is just not a jewelry Christmas, for whatever reason,” she said.
Better times on the horizon — depending on whom you ask
Slep is already looking ahead to next year for better times. She is confident that Trump’s economic policies — including upcoming tax cuts — will make a marked difference in people’s cost of living. In her eyes, the financial strains people are feeling are residual effects from the Biden administration that eventually will fade.
Optimism about what’s to come under Trump’s economy might also depend on whether residents feel their economic conditions have changed drastically in the past year. Shiva Mrain, an engineer in Rocky Mount, said his family’s situation has not “become worse nor better.” He’s been encouraged by seeing lower gas prices.
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Bryant, the engine technician, feels a bit more disillusioned.
She didn’t vote in the last election because she didn’t think either party could enact changes that would improve her life. Nearly a year into the Trump administration, Bryant is still waiting to see whether the president will deliver.
“I can’t really say … that change is coming,” she said. “I don’t think anything is going to change.”
Several people are dead after a small private jet crashed shortly after takeoff in Statesville, North Carolina, according to a local sheriff’s office official.
The crash happened shortly after 10:15 a.m., Iredell County Chief Deputy Bill Hamby told CNN. The exact number of fatalities is not known at this point, he added.
“A Cessna C550 crashed while landing at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina around 10:20 a.m. local time on Thursday, Dec. 18. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation and provide any updates,” the Federal Aviation Administration told CNN.
CNN has reached out to the National Transportation Safety Board.
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Statesville Regional Airport, about 45 miles north of Charlotte, is an uncontrolled airport with no control tower. Pilots are required to self-report their position on and near the airport using a common radio frequency.
Preliminary flight tracking data shows a Cessna Citation 550 left Statesville Regional Airport around 10 a.m. from runway 10, traveled about five miles, then made a near-immediate left turn back toward the airport. The plane did not climb higher than 2,000 feet, according to FlightAware.
Low clouds, light rain, and visibility of less than three miles were reported about 80 minutes after the crash, according to an automated weather station at the airport. It is not clear if these conditions were present when the plane crashed.
“The Statesville Regional Airport provides corporate aviation facilities for Fortune 500 companies and several NASCAR teams,” according to the city website
A 42-year-old North Carolina man on Tuesday was extradited to Pennsylvania after state police said he stole more than $100,000 from ATMs in Snyder and Union counties.
Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, Antoni J. Garcia-Cordoba, of Raleigh, North Carolina, stole from four ATMs at Central Penn Bank and Trust locations, state police said.
In a five-hour span, Garcia-Cordoba took $43,000 from three separate ATMs in Snyder and Union counties, according to a police report. On Oct. 1, he stole an additional $58,000 from an ATM in Titusville, bringing the total amount stolen to $101,000.
Garcia-Cordoba is charged with two counts of corrupt organizations – employee, a first-degree felony, and two counts of theft by unlawful taking, a third-degree felony.
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After being in custody at a jail in Boone County, Missouri, Garcia-Cordoba was extradited to Union County on Tuesday.
He is being held in the Union County Prison after being unable to post $100,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 13, 2026.
