Supporting the pursuit of clinical healthcare careers 

Bradley Enea had a plan to become a nurse. Although it involved going back to school, compromised sleep, tricky finances, and high anxiety, he was ready to take on the challenge.

Enea, a pharmacy technician at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, was accepted to Hartnell College’s nursing program in March 2024. The two-year program, though, came at a cost, and Enea was prepared to juggle the demands of working while attending school in pursuit of his nursing aspirations.

But not long after his acceptance to the program, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself: Montage Health’s new clinical career program, which allows staff to go back to school and stop working but continue to receive pay and benefits.

Designed for Montage Health staff who want to take the next step in their career, the program — made possible by Montage Health Foundation — allows participants to attend a two-year accredited allied healthcare program in traditionally hard-to-fill positions. The handshake hope? Upon graduation, those employees would return to work at Montage Health.

Translated: If Enea was accepted to the program, he could focus solely on the demanding Hartnell nursing curriculum without having to maintain a water-tight schedule between work and school.

“Let us show you a path — let us give you a flexible schedule, let us pay you to go to school,” says Eric LoMonaco, director of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at Montage Health and co-director of the clinical career program. “We will get you to first base, and you’re going to figure out the rest. This is just us believing in them.”

Enea is one of them. Of course, he applied. And, yes, he was accepted.

“The day I made it into the program, it was a big relief,” says Enea, one of three chosen for the inaugural year of the program. “It meant I could fully submerge myself in school. Those hurdles to going back to school vanished. This is a gift for me to advance my career.”

The bounty also blessed Leslie Arango and Joshua Hernandez.

For Arango, a radiology technologist aide who is pursuing a degree in nuclear medicine technology to elevate her career from aid to technologist, the program represented the prospect of generational change.

“Growing up, watching my parents,” says Arango, talking through emotion, “they struggled having four kids. My dad had two jobs. We weren’t really able to do much. My parents always instilled in me that I had to go to school and get a good job, so I don’t end up working two jobs. ‘Give your kids more than we could give you guys,’ they would say.”

And so, Arango is.

She has her sights set squarely on her 11-year-old daughter Jade. They can spend time together on weekends now, which was when Arango used to work. “As a parent, being able to provide and not worry about living paycheck to paycheck while I go back to school is life changing,” Arango says.

For Hernandez, an emergency services technician in Community Hospital’s Emergency department who is destined to become a cardiac ultrasound technician, the clinical career program provides the promise of starting a family in perfect fashion with a baby girl on the way. After stints in hospitality, the Big Sur Fire volunteer brigade, and an EMT gig, his career path is now set.

“Before, I was planning to get a loan, go to San Jose for school, and drop to per diem at the hospital,” Hernandez says. “It would have been very hard to juggle school, life, work, and the baby. This program couldn’t have come at a better time.”

For him, his wife, and their first child.

“When I found out I got accepted to the program, I was visiting my mom,” he says. “I was doing my homework, and I got an email that said I was accepted into the clinical career program. And I just freaked out. I couldn’t hold it in. It’s like winning the lottery.”