WORCESTER, Mass. - Fifteen Assumption University students are getting hands-on training at Saint Vincent Hospital. 

It is part of a first of its kind partnership, where nursing students are already tending to patients through the dedicated education unit. The 12-week program gives students a real-life look at nursing. 

The students are working on the medical surgery floor three days a week with a clinical advisor, where they doing a lot of the work a registered nurse does and building a relationship for the future. 

"These really strong connections are going to help the student connect with that floor as well at the hospital," said Caitlin Stover, Assumption University's dean of nursing. "They will do AM care. They will do rounds. They will do med passes. And the students are eligible to shadow and observe, or actually do the procedure, depending on the level of acuity of that procedure."

At the end of the program, students will present their own research and discoveries from their time working on the floor to hospital and university staff.