‘I’ve Done Things I Never Thought I Could Do’: Training as a Nurse at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare

Registered nurse Ali Alnemer speaks about his journey through Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare’s multi-award-winning nurse training program.

Ali Alnemer was full of doubt. As he walked through the doors of Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare’s Dhahran hospital for the first day of his nursing internship, his confidence, which had propelled him through his academic studies, suddenly evaporated.

“I remember it as if it were yesterday,” he recalls. “I had so many doubts about whether I was going to make it. It was very scary.”

Then Ali cast his mind back to his high school days. “There was a time when I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But then I read a quote that inspired me to choose my path. I can’t remember the exact words, but it was about doing something you enjoy — but also something you don’t mind suffering to achieve.

“That made me think about the special relationship between nurse and patient; how closely the nurse is tied to the patient’s suffering, struggle, joy and every emotion in between. That’s the moment I found myself. I wanted to be a nurse.”

In choosing Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare for his nurse training, Ali made a sound choice.

Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare’s Nurse Residency Program last year became the first in the Eastern Province, and only the second in Saudi Arabia, to receive the highest level of accreditation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).

Weeks later, the ANCC, which sets the global standard for nurse training programs, awarded Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare its highest level of accreditation for Nursing Continuing Professional Development (NCPD), which placed it among a distinguished cohort of just over 700 global institutions—most based in the United States.

And on April 15 this year, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare was elevated to the top tier of nurse training organizations worldwide upon receiving the ANCC’s Premier Award for nursing professional development.

Taken together, these recognitions place Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare at the forefront of nurse training in the Middle East — from residency programs for budding graduates to continuing professional development for the most experienced nurses.

“In college, we’d heard plenty about Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare,” Ali remembers. “We knew it was one of the most advanced hospitals in the region, and that if you wanted to train there — let alone get a job there — you needed to be at the top of your game.”

Ali studied at the Nursing College of Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University before undertaking a one-year internship at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare starting in 2023. He then joined Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare’s nine-month Nurse Residency Program, from which he graduated last year. He says he has since completed “dozens” of NCPD courses at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare. He now works full-time as a cancer care nurse at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare’s Oncology Center of Excellence.

“I’ve done things here at this hospital I never thought I could do,” Ali, 24, says. A few months ago, he led a discussion panel at an international nursing conference, speaking “in front of a very big, very scary audience.” More recently, he was selected to represent the Cancer Care Unit within Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare’s Research Department, having investigated the consequences of vaping during his internship and presenting his findings to senior Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare clinicians.

Ali says: “The reason I can list these accomplishments is because of the quality of training I’ve received. My educators at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare have helped me be to become this guy.”

Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare is home to 1,400 nurses. For the last two years, nine in ten graduate nurses attending Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare’s Nurse Residency Program have been retained as full-time employees.

More than 510 organizations globally are accredited by the ANCC for NCPD, and more than 300 are accredited by the ANCC for their Practice Transition Accreditation Programs.