North Carolina
Innovative UNC program uses students to fill health care gaps
By Maya Hagan
UNC Media Hub
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.”
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.
“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?”
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.
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.
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.
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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Charles Gaddy was tuna fishing with his dad on Sunday, more than 40 miles northeast of Oregon Inlet, when he saw something he’d never seen before.
“I was just looking in the water, seeing if, you know, any birds or anything, and I see this big gray fish with white dots,” said Gaddy. “Just from reading books and watching movies as a kid, I was like, ‘that’s got to be a whale shark.’”
The 18-year-old said they circled it. He grabbed his GoPro camera and started recording.
“It’s just sitting there, swimming beside us. It really, truly was amazing,” said Gaddy.
Whale sharks are the world’s largest fish. They’re currently listed as endangered by the Union for the Conservation of Nature.
In the Western Atlantic, whale sharks are primarily found in the Gulf and throughout the Caribbean, according to Eric Hoffmayer, a research fishing biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. He said they’ve seen numerous whale sharks make their way up the Gulf Stream, ending up in the New England area in late summer and early fall.
“We had an animal last year that we tagged off Tampa and within a month was off New York, and cruised right past North Carolina about this time of year,” said Hoffmayer. “It’s not unheard of, but it’s not real common either.”
Gaddy recognized how lucky he was to experience a sighting.
“To be able to see one in person, especially locally, it’s very truly amazing,” said Gaddy. “It’s no doubt a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m no doubt very blessed.”
If you do encounter a whale shark in the wild, Hoffmayer said, you need to be careful if you’re in a boat because they spend a lot of time at the surface. If you get in the water, keep a safe distance.
“Most people I’ve talked to who have encountered whale sharks, it’s like a life-changing experience,” said Hoffmayer. “It’s really cool to see an animal that large in the wild doing its thing.”
You can report whale shark sightings to the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Fisheries Research and Development. If you’re able to capture a good picture of a whale shark, you can see if it matches one already in a database by uploading the photo and information about the sighting online.
OMAHA, Neb. — The championship series is set. And without a doubt, the two hottest teams, North Carolina and Oklahoma, are paired to play for a national title at the College World Series.
There was no backing into the finals for these squads, one that looked like a contender all season and one that did not until two weeks ago.
North Carolina (53-12-1) and Oklahoma (41-22) swept through opposite brackets at Charles Schwab Field. UNC punctuated its three-game run with a 12-7 victory Wednesday against West Virginia. OU followed by defeating Georgia, the regular-season and postseason SEC champ, 11-4.
Iconic brands in college sports, the Tar Heels and Sooners will meet Saturday at 8 p.m. ET in the opening game of a best-of-three series.
North Carolina seeks its first national championship in baseball. It lost in the finals in 2006 and 2007. Oklahoma has won two crowns, most recently in 1994, and it lost in the finals in 2022.
LET’S PLAY FOR A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/588pVssfOR
— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) June 18, 2026
“It really hasn’t set in yet,” said UNC second baseman Gavin Gallaher, who was 4 for 5 on Wednesday with four RBIs. “After the game, we shook hands, and I was just kind of walking around, looking up in the stands, looking at my family, just kind of speechless, to be honest.”
The Tar Heels were seeded fifth in the 64-team field announced on Memorial Day. In Omaha, they have not trailed by more than one run — and for just three innings. North Carolina’s pitching staff, on maximum rest during its stay in Omaha, is set up well for the weekend.
Junior ace starter Jason DeCaro, who worked 6 2/3 innings Friday, enters the championship series in position to start the opener. Star freshman Caden Glauber, who was needed for 2 1/3 innings Wednesday afternoon as WVU mounted a comeback, has thrown only 54 pitches in the CWS. The Tar Heels are 28-0 this year when Glauber appears in a game. He’s won 11 decisions without a loss.
Sixth-year coach Scott Forbes took over in 2021 for Mike Fox, who brought North Carolina to the CWS seven times. Bids for a first national title fell short in 2006 and 2007 against Oregon State in the championship series.
Forbes joined Fox’s staff before that 2006 season as a 31-year-old pitching coach.
“I’m trying not to get emotional,” Forbes said, “just thinking about that team and Coach Fox giving me the opportunity. I wasn’t the popular hire at the time. There were a lot bigger names. I had never been a pitching coach. But Coach Fox saw something in me and gave me that opportunity.”
Oklahoma returns to the championship series for the second time in five years. It lost to Ole Miss in 2022. The Rebels that year were the first team to win a championship with a losing record in conference play.
OU is attempting to become the second.
Coach Skip Johnson’s team finished 14-16 in the SEC and lost four consecutive league series to close the regular season. But the Sooners clawed back in Regional play, winning two elimination games at Georgia Tech, the No. 2 overall seed.
OU swept Kansas in a Super Regional and beat SEC foes Alabama and Georgia before it won the rematch Wednesday night against the Bulldogs.
The Sooners remade their pitching rotation in the postseason to ride three true freshmen: left-hander Cord Rager, a season-long starter, Xander Mercurius and Nick Wesloski. The latter duo had combined to start four games this season before they both beat the Bulldogs, who came to Omaha with the most powerful lineup in college baseball.
Wesloski fired 5 2/3 innings Wednesday and struck out four, one off his career high.
Rager and Mercurius have inspired Wesloski, he said.
“Seeing the way they dominated and they carry themselves,” he said, “those guys are just elite. Watching them go about their process has made me a better pitcher. Those guys look unstoppable, unbeatable. It’s added to my confidence level. They influence me a ton.”
OU got hot at the plate, too. In eliminating Georgia, it homered five times, including two apiece by Jason Walk and Dasan Harris. Before Wednesday, Walk had hit four bombs in 200 at-bats; Harris had four in 137 at-bats.
Twenty-five of Oklahoma’s 90 home runs this year have come in 10 postseason games.
It pays to get hot at the right time.
“You’re looking at a baseball team, a selfless baseball team that’s really fun to be around,” said Johnson, the ninth-year OU coach. “Hopefully, I can just stay out of the way the next two or three games.”
RALEIGH, NC — For years, WRAL Investigates tracked problems with North Carolina’s unemployment benefits system.
Now, two new follow-up audits show the same problems still persist inside the Division of Employment Security (DES) when it comes to paying the correct amount of unemployment and paying those first-time benefits on time.
The first audit deals with improper payments. The category includes fraud, overpayments and underpayments.
From 2021-2025, the auditor found the improper payment rate for unemployment benefits in North Carolina was 22%, most of which were overpayments. That’s more than double the national standard of 10% error rate.
According to the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor (OSA), those payment errors cost taxpayers more than $90 million over the expected 10% error rate.
In fact, the improper payment rate got worse compared to an initial audit’s findings back in 2022, when OSA found errors in 18% of payments.
The second follow-up audit out today dealt with timeliness of benefits, meaning when people finally got paid after filing and qualifying for unemployment.
In 2024- 2025, 28% of first-time unemployment checks were not cut within the 14-day federal standard. While not great, it’s an improvement compared to previous audit findings of 40% late checks in 2022 and 43% of late checks in 2024.
In fact, the auditor’s office noted on-time payments in below the national standard in just 3 of the past 20 years.
The Division of Unemployment Security agreed with the findings and recommendations to improve North Carolina’s unemployment system.
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