Nurse training lab opens in city

The four-year nursing program now being offered in Yorkton now has a new clinical lab area to enhance the program.

The lab, which officially opened Friday, which is a partnership between the University of Saskatchewan College of Nursing, Sunrise Health Region and Parkland College, is located in the Yorkton Regional Health Centre.

The new Nursing Clinical Skills Lab provides a consolidated and standardized practice space to host nursing labs in the second and third year of the BSN program. “The investment in this health education infrastructure in Yorkton will not only provide a quality learning experience for our undergrad BSN students, but will also serve as an excellent venue for collaboration among health care educators and providers in the Sunrise Health Region,” said Mark Tomtene, director of operations and strategic planning with the U of S College of Nursing, in a release.

The Nursing Clinical Skills Lab has all the resources students and instructors need, including four patient beds, simulation mannequins and various medical devices, giving students the confidence to complete the practical skills they will need during their clinical placements throughout the program, detailed the release. The equipment used in the Yorkton simulation lab is the same as other College of Nursing labs across the province.  Other amenities in the lab include a hand washing station, storage space and audio visual equipment to bring rich media learning material into the lab setting.

Adjacent to the lab is a new meeting room for students to use during debriefing sessions, with full video conferencing capabilities available for distributed teaching, research and administrative purposes.  Creating an academic learning lab within the hospital allows for the shared use of Seymour, the remote presence communication robot that was introduced in Sunrise Health Region in 2015.

“The video conference and remote presence technology in the new lab can connect professionals together from around the world, creating an opportunity to bring additional expertise into the Sunrise Health Region, as well as, share with the rest of the world the talent and leadership in rural health delivery already located in Yorkton,” said Tomtene in the release.

The facility in Yorkton is part of a growing element of education allowing students “to learn where they live,” said Yorkton MLA Greg Ottenbreit during remarks at the official opening, adding it is part of what is now being termed “distributed learning.”

In providing nursing education closer to home for many students it also “answers the call for additional training seats,” he said.

Dwayne Reeve, president of Parkland College, said the facility and the course certainly fits with the college’s effort to provide “learning opportunities right here at home.”

Reeve said that having the chance to learn close to home has many benefits, including helping students recognize post education opportunities which are local. Students can “stay here, learn here” and after graduating “stay here and make a living here.”

Kurt Fahlman’s last year in school was a number of years ago, but now the Yorkton resident is in his second year of nursing in the city. He said having the course here opened a door for him.

“I didn’t have to pick up and leave and go away,” he said, adding being married with children would have made the move option almost impossible to pursue.

“I don’t know if I would have. It would have been very different if I had,” he said.

Amy Daniel is from Tantallon. She said she chose Yorkton for her nurse training because it offered a better instructor-to-student ratio.

“The class size,” she said, adding she feels she has better access to her instructors.

Of course there are challenges with distance education, said Fahlman, but he said their instructors, both locally and at the college in Saskatoon, “make themselves pretty available to us.”

As Reeve alluded to, both Fahlman and Daniel are at least considering a local area position once they complete the four-year program.

“I want to be a nurse in a smaller community,” said Daniel, adding if not Yorkton itself, she could be looking at a community such as Esterhazy.

Fahlman said having grown-up in Yorkton, with family and friends here, it would be a natural to stay here, he said.

It is an opportunity which did not happen without the efforts of many, said Christina Denysek, interim CEO with Sunrise Health Region during her remarks at Friday’s event.

“It doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s a very diversified team to make it happen,” she said.

But the effort has been worth it because “it allows students access to teaching in a clinical setting,” said Denysek.

The new lab uses the latest distance education technology.

“This is leading edge in health care in education,” said Denysek.

Ottenbreit said he was very proud of the innovation being used in health education delivery as exemplified by the teaching lab in Yorkton.

Beth Horsburgh, Interim Dean, College of Nursing, said the innovative process of providing education in places such as Yorkton, away from the main University college shows just what can be accomplished. She suggested why cutting edge is often thought to be found in big cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, but added that is not always the case.

“The solutions the world needs are not found in those cities,” she said, suggesting instead a program like the one in Yorkton is.

“These are not second class approaches. These are cutting edge,” said Horsburgh picking up on a common thread among remarks. “… We can do amazing things in this province if we are willing to think outside the box.”

That is particularly true in health care, suggested Horsburgh, who noted Saskatchewan is recognized as the birthplace of Medicare, and it can be known for innovative solutions to the challenges facing the health care system today.

“We are in a position to reinvent health care. We did it before. We can do it again,” she said.

Ottenbreit offered that having educational opportunities for nurses is important because once graduated they play a very important is the overall health care system.  The students are part of providing “safe patient care in the future.”

A clinical skills lab provides students with a controlled learning environment to practice their nursing skills before entering into clinical settings with patients.  A broad range of theory courses ranging from anatomy to paediatrics, provides students with the knowledge and science they will need to apply in the skills lab, detailed circulate material.  Through the partnership established in 2014 between the U of S and Parkland College, nursing students are able to take all of their theory classes in Yorkton at Parkland College. “This lab is a wonderful addition to the program, providing our students with new, exciting learning opportunities,” said Dwayne Reeve, President of Parkland College. “It’s an important tool that will help students in the Parkland region to hone their skills and prepare for careers in health care.”

The partnerships between the U of S College of Nursing, Sunrise Health Region and Parkland College are evidence of the commitment to innovation and capacity building that is shared by all three institutions for advancing health education and healthcare in Saskatchewan.