Karen Wall, the Chair of the Nursing Department, is set to retire at the end of the month. A college-wide retirement reception was held in her honour on April 4th with many past and present co-workers, friends and family in attendance. Colleagues from near and far were in attendance from the WRHA, University of Manitoba, St. Boniface University, The Advisory Committee, CRNM, and David Gregory, the past Dean of the Nursing Department at the University of Manitoba. Karen has led the nursing department at Red River College for over 15 years, although she has been a part of the department for over 35 years. She will be sadly missed by all who had the pleasure of working with and for Karen, as she demonstrated grace, compassion and professionalism in her role as the head of the nursing department. Karen will leave a legacy in her departure, including seeing the first-ever Nursing Degree class graduate from Red River College this past year.

Everyone at the college wishes Karen a wonderful retirement, including taking much deserved time for herself and pursuing personal opportunities. Enjoy Karen! You will be missed.

( Pictures by Leslie Walsh)

Red River College, Nursing Department staff and students participated in a Mock disaster.

In September 2013, the Manitoba Health, Office of Disaster Management conducted a mock evacuation of a 75 bed acute care hospital, as well as a 30 bed personal care home from a Northern Health Region in MB.

This was a large, cooperative exercise involving 189 individuals from 62 separate stakeholder groups. Third year RRC nursing students (seen in grey uniforms) and faculty; Lillian Mugweni and Alison Fyfe-Carlson, had an opportunity to practice skills of triage, disaster management and communication with other health departments in the development of an Interim Medical Treatment Facility (IMTF).

An IMTF is a temporary facility that is created to receive a large amount of patients, triage them and provide care while they wait to be placed in an appropriate facility within the health care system.

MB Health considered all of the feedback from stakeholders and developed an “After Action Report/Improvement Plan”.  MB Health plans to look at other collaborative IMTF exercises such as a Trauma Event Scenario in the future.

This was an excellent learning opportunity for RRC Nursing students and faculty.

Active triage

Heather Day, the inaugural winner of the Nursing Gold Medal for Excellence is pictured here with the chair of the Nursing Department, Karen Wall. The prestigious award was handed out on Februaury 4th, 2014 at the Red River College Graduation.

This evening saw over one hundred students from the initial three year Nursing Degree class from Red River College graduate with faculty, friends and family present to honour their achievements.

Congratulations Heather! We wish you all the best as you embark on your exciting new career.

Winnipeg has been in the news a lot this winter because of our current run of cold temperatures. While this may make for some stimulating (albeit whining) discussion at lunch, there are some very real concerns as a result of the frigid cold…….. finding warmth for the homeless.

Siloam Mission is a Christian humanitarian organization that alleviates hardships and provides opportunities for change for those affected by homelessness. They currently have an urgent need for warm socks. The Nursing Department wanted to find a way to help. And so, at the recent WNRCASN (Western North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing) conference, we provided conference delegates with the opportunity to help meet that need. Delegates were asked to bring a pair (or more) of new sports/work socks with them to the conference. Or, to “purchase” socks (generously donated by Walmart – Unicity) that were available at the conference.

We accumulated about 400 pairs of socks and collected $448.75!

health fair

3rd year nursing students held a Health Fair in the Library Hallway Wednesday February 12th, 2014.

This was an assignment in their Epidemiology and Illness prevention class.

With their instructor’s, students brought their coursework to life.

Year 3 Nursing Students, Epidemiology and Illness prevention

This course focuses on concepts, research and practices associated with epidemiology, the prevention of chronic illness and injury prevention. It involves public health strategies for reducing health risk and the nurse’s role in the promotion of health and the primary and secondary prevention of illness.

Red River College is proud to host

An opportunity to engage in dialogue related to nursing education, support networking and enhance continued learning and awareness within the nursing education community.

WNRCASN

Western & North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing Conference, 2014

Embracing Challenges:

Nursing Education in the 21st Century

February 19-21, 2014
Fort Garry Hotel
Winnipeg, MB

For more info, visit, www.rrc.ca/wnrcasn.

Congratulations to the Winter 2014 Graduates!

107 proud Red River College, Bachelor of Nursing Degree Graduates crossed the stage on February 4th.

This event marked the first Graduating Class of Red River College’s Bachelor of Nursing Program.

We wish the new graduates all the best as they have achieved the graduate outcomes of the program and explore how their roles will influence nursing practice in the years to come.

Congratulations!

To see the live feed go to:  http://t.co/c7oFpJMfM0

Please join us for displays and a pizza lunch in the library hallway May 6th and 7th, as our students and faculty showcase Nursing: A Leading Force for Change.

The College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba (CRNM) will be honouring two of our nursing faculty with awards on Thursday May 9. Winn Briscoe and Leslie Walsh will be presented with the Award of Excellence in Nursing Education.  The award presentation and dinner is at Canad Inns Polo Park from 5:00-9:00. Tickets are available from pyeates@crnm.mb.ca or (204) 789-0662. No reserved seating. The order deadline is May 2nd.

Congratulations Winn and Leslie!

The Western North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (WNRCASN) recently held their annual nurse educators’ conference in Edmonton on February 21-23, 2013. This conference facilitated the sharing of ideas, strategies, philosophies, and research findings to develop the scholarship of nursing. Several RRC nursing faculty presented at the conference and a brief description of their projects is included.

• Building Self-Efficacy In Scholarly Writing In First Year Nursing Students (Author: Kim Mitchell)

The complex task of researching and writing a scholarly paper is anxiety provoking for students. This presentation detailed the process of developing a course in scholarly writing within the context of delivering course material to an audience of 150-200 students. Preliminary research findings regarding the course’s influence on anxiety and self-efficacy were also presented.

• Arts-based Learning: Creating Art to Reflect on Practice, Reflecting on Art to Inform Practice (Authors: Kendra Rieger, Luanne Hill, Joanne Loughery)

Arts-based learning is an innovative teaching strategy in which learning is designed to occur through the use of one or more art form(s) integrated with subject matter from another academic discipline. This presentation discussed two arts based learning exemplars and the potential for arts-based learning in the current nursing curriculum.

• Arts-based Learning: Analysis of the Concept for Nursing Education (Presented by: Kendra Rieger; Authors: Kendra Rieger and Dr. Wanda Chernomas — University of Manitoba)

There is a call for a significant shift in curricula away from content focused designs and towards developing environments in which learning processes are emphasized and active student engagement is fostered. Arts-based learning (ABL) is an innovative strategy which engages learners and simultaneously connects thoughts with feelings as part of the learning process.  This presentation focuses on a concept analysis of ABL within the nursing education environment.

• Using Client Actors in Nursing Education: The Highest Kind of Fidelity (Authors: Karlene Cifuentes, Brenda Enns, Richel Roque, Jennifer Otto)

The new Baccalaureate Nursing program at Red River College identified a need to integrate a wide variety of innovative teaching approaches.  Using client actors in nursing clinical simulation was one such teaching approach. This presentation discussed the process of integrating client actors into nursing education, the difference between client actor scenarios and standard case studies, and future directions with the approach.

• Professional Identity Development in Nursing Education: A Study in Progress (Presented by Brenda Enns; Authors: Brenda Enns, Virginia Vandall-Walker — Athabaska University)

Positive Proffessional Nursing Identity (PNI) development has been associated with greater satisfaction with one’s work and improved patient outcomes. This presentation focused on preliminary findings from a qualitative grounded theory investigation into positive PNI which has the potential to inform educational and clinical practice changes that could promote new graduates’ abilities to consolidate and enact positive PNIs in practice.