What are the odds that two new nursing graduates looking for jobs would show up to Nurses Night at the Phillies with no idea the event was happening? Or that, once they realized what was going on, they’d meet the Nurse Manager of the very unit they wanted to work on? How about that, after a bit of follow-up, they’d end up with jobs on the TUH-Main Campus Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU)?
If you’re talking about Roberto Concepcion, RN, BSN and Jacques Gosbin, RN, BSN, then those odds are very good. They’ve now both spent a year on the Main Campus SICU after first being interviewed at Nurses Night at the Phillies in 2023—though before they arrived, they had no idea that was the theme of the night’s game.
“We thought it was going to be a Mother’s Day game,” laughs Gosbin. “My mom was actually with us. We were so surprised when we got to the ballpark and the Temple Health tent was the first thing we saw.”
Both Gosbin and Concepcion had just graduated from nursing school, and were working together as Critical Care techs at the same hospital. Each of them wanted to join the ICU as a nurse, but were finding it difficult to get a position on the unit at that hospital.
“Jacques’ mom is a nurse, and when we saw the Temple sign, she told us, ‘You guys better go and talk to them!’” Concepcion remembers. “We were like, ‘Should we? Should we not?’ But it was like a scene out of a movie because she went up behind us and shoved us both into the booth. She was like, ‘No, you have to go in.’”
“What If I Told You I Was the Manager of An ICU at Temple?”
The first person Concepcion and Gosbin saw was Ercele Reyes, BSN, MSN. Reyes is Clinical Director of the TUH-Main Campus SICU—which meant that, unbeknownst to them, the pair was face-to-face with their future boss.
“We started chatting with her, and told her that we really wanted to get into Critical Care, but that we knew how tough it was to find a Critical Care job,” Concepcion says. “And she said, ‘What if I told you I was the manager of an ICU at Temple?’ We looked at each other and said, ‘Oh my God, no way!’”
“We told her about our experience in the ICU, and she told us she loved us,” Gosbin recalls. “She said she would forward us to HR, and to expect to hear back from her. I was pumped.”
Gosbin and Concepcion both had one more phone interview, and were especially impressed with how quickly HR handled the hiring process.
“I was actually also applying to get into the ICU at the hospital where I was working, and in the time it took for me to hear back from that hospital’s HR, I did my entire interview and basically accepted my job offer at Temple,” Gosbin says.
Building Experience, Supporting Growth
The two friends joined the SICU together, and they couldn’t be happier with their new positions.
“It’s been an awesome experience,” Gosbin says. “We deal with the highest-acuity cases, and that’s exactly what I wanted. And the other nurses are excellent, too—I love every single other nurse up here, and I’m never afraid to ask questions or get help.”
“I love it so far,” Concepcion agrees. “I feel like the experience I’m getting will prepare me for anything.”
Gosbin also appreciates Temple’s emphasis on supporting our employees. “The entire package Temple offers is so great,” he says. “My health insurance is off the charts. My pay is excellent, our insurance is awesome, we have 403b and supplemental retirement accounts, and we have a super high match. I hear the same thing from nurses who have been here for 30 years: ‘Temple’s benefits package is so good.’ And my starting salary at Temple was an 11th year experienced nurse’s salary at the hospital where I used to work.”
It’s all of this that makes Gosbin and Concepcion so glad that they’ve joined our Temple Health team—and we’re very grateful that they found their way to our Nurses Night at the Phillies tent!