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Mariann Shortt interviews with Nancy Littlefield of the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center on Wednesday.
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For Pam Payne of Orange County, the search for a shorter commute began with a 45-minute wait on Wednesday.
She was one of dozens of job hunters who lined up to talk to an HCA Virginia Health System representative at the Healthcare Jobfair held at the Fredericksburg Hospitality House & Conference Center.
"Right now, I work for a doctors group in Woodbridge in billing and finance," Payne said. "It's 49 miles from my home and sometimes it takes an hour to get there."
If she could get a job at the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, which HCA plans to open in the spring of 2010, her commute would be cut in half, she said.
About 500 people, from newly minted medical assistants to experienced nurses to accounting types to those seeking management positions, turned out for the fair. It was the third such specialized job-hunting opportunity sponsored by The Free Lance-Star since last February.
Many, like Payne, were looking for good-paying jobs closer to home. Others in such fields as banking were hoping to find more secure jobs during the current economic downturn.
The demand for people with medical skills is booming in the Fredericksburg area. Besides HCA, other job fair participants included MediCorp Health System, the parent company of Mary Washington Hospital. It will open its Stafford Hospital Center this month on U.S. 1 near the county courthouse.
Job fair attendee Nicole Breeden, who just got her degree as a medical assistant from Medical Careers Institute in Newport News, said she moved to Stafford specifically because of jobs.
"I was living in Gloucester," she said, "and I wasn't finding anything."
Understandably, HCA and MediCorp were the most popular of the 13 employers and educational institutions that took part. Both attracted long lines of applicants in the Hospitality Center's ballroom. At one point the line for HCA stretched out the door and into the hall.
Nancy Littlefield, chief nursing officer for the Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, said she was pleased with the caliber of applicants she met and was thrilled that two people stood in line just to tell her how happy they were that HCA is coming here.
"We're getting a lot of interest from people who work at other health care facilities in the area," she said between chats with applicants at the job fair. They included nurses and therapists as well as people who work in marketing, billing, coding and administration.
Littlefield said she'd received 500 applications before the job fair but currently had only two openings. Both are for department directors. HCA will be hiring people for management positions throughout 2009 but won't hire most of its clinical staff until the end of the year.
"Everyone will be hired by January of 2010," she said. "Spring of 2010, that's when we'll take patients, but we need to get our staff oriented, trained and ready to go before then."
MediCorp already has hired about 85 percent of the staff needed for its Stafford Hospital Center, many of whom were recruited from jobs in Fairfax and Prince William counties, said Kathryn Wall, executive vice president of human resources and organizational development for MediCorp.
The corporation is doing a final push to fill the remaining gaps. Most are in clinical areas such as nursing, although there are a few entry-level non-clinical positions available.
"What we're seeing is a lot of people from the banking and mortgage end, and a lot who did construction or retail," Wall said. "Those are the folks that are trying to get their start in health care."
The University of Mary Washington was among the educational institutions at the fair to promote training for those sorts of people. Its College of Graduate and Professional Studies in Stafford offers a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in health care management as well as a post-baccalaureate certificate in health care management.
"Health care is a business," said Alan G. Heffner, the college's MBA program director and professor of leadership and management. "When we met with folks from area hospitals, EMTs, and community colleges a year and a half ago, the one thing they strongly emphasized was the need for people with a solid business background. We really expect this to grow quite a bit."
Other participants in Wednesday's job fair were Career Training Solutions, Civista Medical Center, Culpeper Health and Rehab, Culpeper Regional Hospital, Dogwood Village of Orange County, HealthSouth of Fredericksburg, Heritage Hall, the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board and Stratford University.
Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407
Email: cjett@freelancestar.com
