Photo by Skip Lawrence Khaled Abuhatab, simulator lab coordinator at Frederick Community College, works on SimMan, a computerized patient simulator used for training, during a reception to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the FCC nursing program.

After graduating in 2005, the Frederick resident applied to Frederick Memorial Hospital, only to find there were no openings.

She was accepted in an oncology fellowship program at the National Institutes of Health, where she worked in the bone marrow transplant unit. She is now part of a team working to cure hairy cell leukemia, a rare form of the blood cancer.

"Only 2 percent of all leukemias are hairy cell," she said. "If you get that, you'd be lucky to come to us."

Her team is researching immunotherapy to treat the disease.

FCC officials paused last week to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the school's nursing program. The curriculum is well-respected in the field, said Jane Garvin, professor and director of nursing education.

"Our graduates are much in demand," she said last week.

Year after year, the program boasts an enviable pass rate on national licensure exams. Graduates of FCC's 70-credit associate degree RN program have had a 90 percent or greater licensure pass rate every year since 1969.

Admission to the nursing program is competitive. About 25 percent of applicants are accepted. For the class starting in January, 121 people applied for 32 seats, Garvin said.

"The lowest (grade-point average) in that group is 3.56 É we get the cream of the crop," she said.

The lagging economy has had a minimal effect on nursing jobs, Garvin said, as the demand for qualified nurses has slowed somewhat. Many who had planned to retire have stayed in the work force.

"Our graduates are still getting jobs, it's just not the five jobs for every candidate that has been the case in the past," Garvin said.

Available jobs are as varied as the graduates themselves.

Karen Calabrese, Class of 2000, and Kelli Paugh, a 1998 graduate, are colleagues at the Shady Grove Fertility Center.

Calabrese enjoys the work she does, helping couples who have struggled to conceive. She also likes the weekend schedule that allows her to be home with two young children during the week.

Paugh said she enjoys teaching and advocating for patients in her job.

Su Woo always wanted to work with babies. When she graduated in December 2005 as a member of FCC's first weekend and evening class, she landed a job at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital's birth center.

"Most of the time, it is a very happy place," she said. "But when it's not happy, it's really not happy."

One difficulty for programs including FCC's is finding nursing educators, Garvin said. Teaching salaries are a bit lower than those on the practitioner side, but that isn't the biggest drawback. There is a shortage of nurses with master's degrees, the minimum level of education needed to teach.

Janis Vasquenza is a grad who went on to receive her master's degree with the goal of returning to teach.

She received her associate degree in 1990, after teaching elementary school in Florida and managing a medical office in Frederick .

When her children reached high school, Vasquenza decided to go back to school and gave herself a strict timeline.

"I needed to be out of college before the boys got to college," she said with a laugh. "We couldn't all do it at the same time."

Vasquenza earned her bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her master's degree in trauma, critical care and emergency medicine from the University of Maryland at Baltimore in 2000.

"I've come full circle in teaching," Vasquenza said.

"I loved so many things about the clinical side of nursing," she said. "And now I love being able to train the next generation of nurses.

"It's wonderful to see the light bulb moment -- when they get it and everything clicks."