UPDATE: 1st Napa Valley College Career Panel is Today

The Napa Valley College Alumni Association is launching a regular series of career panels featuring NVC alum. 

The first panel is from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. this Thursday, June 27,  and is on pursuing careers in healthcare.

It will be in the McCarthy Library Community Room, and is free and open to the general public.

Featured on Thursday will be

--Aurora Gomez, a Public Healthcare Advocate and UCSF Medical Student

--Donna Geiger, NVC Faculty and Clinical Instructor in the Associate Degree Nursing Program

--Suzanne Shiff, Executive Director of the Napa Valley Coalition of Nonprofit Agencies

RSVP: nvcf@napavalley.edu or call 707/256-7110

About the Panelists

Donna Geiger (Class of 1976) became a Registered Nurse after graduating from NVC’s Associate Degree in Nursing program.  In 1981 she attained her BSN degree with a Family Nurse Practitioner Certificate and then her MSN in 1996, all from Sonoma State University.  She has worked in the ICU, Family and GI practices in the community setting and at UCSF.  For the past 15 years she has been a clinician and patient advocate for patients with chronic hepatitis, including facilitating a grant (The Champion Provider Project) through the California Endowment and the Sonoma County Public Health Department. In 2006 she returned to her alma mater joining the faculty in the ADN program to help teach new nurses for the 21st century.  She is an ANCC-BC FNP and continues her clinical practice part time as a Family Nurse Practitioner at the Petaluma Health Center. 

Suzanne Shiff (Class of 1976) graduated from the Psychiatric Technician program, then transferred to Sacramento State to complete her degree in Recreation Therapy. She began her career at Napa State Hospital where she retired after 24 years -- her last position was as Program Administrator. Upon completing a graduate degree in Organizational Development from Sonoma State University, Suzanne worked for the County of Napa and the Napa Valley Vintners Association.  She currently works as Executive Director of the Napa Valley Coalition of Nonprofit Agencies.

Aurora Gomez (Class of 2004) completed her studies at community college and transferred to UC Berkeley where she graduated in 2007 with B.A. in Psychology. During her time at Cal she worked as a research assistant in Cal’s Graduate Department of Education and completed two INROADS summer internships in administration with Kaiser Permanente. After graduating from Cal she worked in the Oakland Unified School District as an Intervention Specialist in Special Education, completed a summer internship with Health Career Connections at the Health Initiative of the Americas with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and worked part time as ophthalmology technician at small private practice and as research assistant in Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research. She was accepted into UC San Francisco School of Medicine in PRIME-US (Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved) in the fall of 2009 and completed a preceptorship through the California Academy of Family Physicians at Clinic Ole in Napa. Most recently she completed a Master's in Public Health at UC Berkeley, where her work focused on health care practices among Latino immigrants while volunteering with Street Level Health Project and Teach for Health where she collaboratively created health curriculum for health promoter trainings (in Nicaragua) and occupational health sessions (for Oakland day laborers).  She is currently starting her fourth year of medical school and hopes to practice in Primary Care (Family Medicine) in an underserved community/county clinic setting in California (hopefully in Napa).