Baccalaureate Nursing Students Zada Stevens and Stacy Topolnicki initiated and organized a gently used clothing drive for mothers and children for KidBridge in February of 2015. The students were motivated to collect gently used clothing for new immigrants and aboriginal women at Turtle Island Community Centre after a presentation in their Community Health 2 (Global Health) class by Lorelle Perry, the founder of KidBridge.

All items were donated by the students in the Community Health 2 class at Red River College. The collected items were dropped off by Zada, Stacy and Alison Fyfe-Carlson (RRC nursing instructor) on February 24, 2015. KidBridge is a weekly English language conversation/ play group for new immigrant mothers and their children. The play group was formed to help new immigrant moms to meet their neighbors and it gives women the opportunity to practice their communication skills in English. Women and their children can socialize with other moms and form long-time friendship within their communities.

KidBridge runs at 2 locations from 9.30 to
11.30am every Tuesday at the Turtle Island Community Centre and every Wednesday at Calvary Temple Downtown. RRC is proud of Zada and Stacy and their 3rd year classmates for their efforts to help those in need within our community. Well done!

Come Celebrate Nursing Week

with RRC’s Nursing Faculty

and Students!

May 15th in the Library Hallway

Pizza Lunch Fundraiser

From 1145 to 1300

RRC Nursing Students Experience Virtual Dementia

Term 3 Older Adult Nursing students had the opportunity to experience virtual dementia with Jennifer Vicente-Licardo from the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba. The students visualized what a person with dementia may feel as if she or he embarks a fast bullet train where the scenes and people begin to change faster and more chaotic. Students discussed the impact of the debilitating terminal disease, Dementia.

Among other activities, the students were challenged by an unfair hearing test, trying to trace the mirror image of a star, to simulate the difficulty of the inability to control the brain. Students discussed the challenges of sensory and functional losses affecting activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living as dementia progresses.

Persons with dementia are trying to make sense of the world around them. They often are overwhelmed with feelings of loss in control, frustration, fear, helplessness, anger and grief. Their reactive and responsive behaviours are often “self-defensive” resulting in mutual resistance, verbal and physical outbursts or rough handling between the person with dementia and the carer.

While the person with dementia has structural brain damage, the carers with healthy brain would need to find alternative ways to reach out to them, to help them meet their needs that they are unable to express. Instructor Poh-Lin Lim commented, “Rushed care, rapid fire speech and built up frustrations within ourselves would not help our roles as carers. Instead, give the persons with dementia some space, go with their flow, return to re-approach later when resistance is met; coupled with a bright smile, gentle voice tone and a caring attitude, would enhance the caring experience”.

Finding the Real Person behind the Disease…

Look closer, there was once a young spirited person full of life and dreams trapped inside this terminal disease called Dementia.   The following are a few random excerpts from the students’ reflective comments:

Course leader Marilyn Penner and Instructor Poh-Lin Lim would like to thank Catherine Baxter, Chairperson, RRC Nursing, and Jennifer Vicente-Licardo, Education Coordinator of Alzheimer Society of Manitoba for this unique learning opportunity.

Check out one of Red River College’s first year BN nursing students, Paige Procter, who was nominated for the CBC’s Manitoba Future 40 finalists!

Manitoba Future 40 celebrates Manitoba’s new generation of leaders, builders, and change-makers under the age of 40.

Nominees highlight professional contributions and/or outstanding service contributions in the community. They explain efforts and initiatives that advocate for the health and success of Manitoba and the people who work and live in this province.

Click here:  Paige Procter

Congratulations Paige!

Course leader for Leadership and Management in Professional Nursing, Cindy Boughen, welcomed the Regional Director Acute Medicine, Elmer Pangilinan, from the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority to share his Leadership journey with her third year nursing students.

Elmer answered questions students had about his changing perspective as his career evolved. He shared examples of how creativity and challenging the way people think can help solve problems. He spoke of how nursing was “wired for problem solving”, and this can be applied beyond bedside nursing to advocate for people to come up with their own solutions.

His inspirational message included tips on how to balance a leadership role, adapt, prioritize and to manage time.

His advice for the entry to practice Registered nurse was “just don’t sit there”, “get involved”. Elmer expressed, “Sometimes being scared is a good thing; It helps you grow.”

Thank you to Elmer for taking time to share his inspirational and encouraging words to the third year Red River College Nursing Students.

Wilma Schroeder, RN BN MMFT is course leader for the Family Nursing course here at Red River College, and is co-chair of the International Family Nursing Association (IFNA) Communications Committee. On March 18, 2015 the committee presented a free webinar related to IFNA’s upcoming conference.

Wilma Schroeder MMFT BN

Wilma, along with co-chair Dr. Janice Bell and committee member Dr. Wendy Looman, presented on the topic of social media, its benefits, and how conference participants can use it.

The webinar, titled “Tweet, Post and Chat: Maximizing Your Conference (IFNC12) Experience Through the Use of Social Media” was attended online by family nurses around the world. The webinar is now archived on the IFNA website at http://internationalfamilynursing.org/webinars/

Commencing January of 2015, all RRC BN Graduates write and pass a national computer adaptive test (NCLEX) in order to be licensed to nurse in Canada. Brittani Rainkie, 2014 Graduate of the BN program was among the first Canadian candidates to write the NCLEX in early January. She generously agreed to describe her experience about the process and shared some tips on how to prepare for the NCLEX exam so that this information could be posted on the RRC Nursing Blog.

Writing the NCLEX Exam

Brittani described being nervous on the day of the exam. Not so much about writing a computer based exam. Nervousness was due to the “high stakes” of the exam outcome, her license to practice being the goal. She felt more anxious when she was in the test environment as there were high security measures in place. For example, each candidate had to have their palms scanned, their pictures taken and their clothing checked prior to entering the testing room. Brittani felt she was prepared for some of these measures but not others. She had prepared by reading all the information available to licensing candidates on the College of Registered Nurses (CRNM) website.

Brittani also told us that the environment that she wrote the exam in was intimidating. There were glass walls surrounding the test room and cameras monitoring the candidates at every step of the process. She told us that the computer screen will prompt you after a specified time that you are eligible to take a break but you do not have to take a break if you do not need one. The test room seats several writers at a time (in her session there were 6 people writing at the same time) and it can get noisy. She was able to hear the typing of the other candidates and the moving of the mouse to answer questions. Candidates are offered earplugs to eliminate some of this noise. Candidates also receive a white board to jot notes on, do calculations etc… She also told us that when the computer analyzes that you have completed the exam the screen will go blank and a message will appear telling you that the exam is over.

Preparation Tips

Before attempting to write, Brittani recommends that all candidates gather as much information as possible from all sources well in advance of their exam date. She began her preparation early in her Senior Practicum. She did a thorough search of the CRNM website for all information available on the Canadian NCLEX and felt this did help her to know what to expect. She utilized an online resource with computerized NCLEX style questions, testing herself frequently during the weeks prior to her exam date. Brittany felt this was an excellent opportunity as several of the questions on the actual exam were very similar to those she had practiced. The opportunity to practice answering the various types of NCLEX questions was invaluable. For example, in addition to multiple choice questions there were drag and drop questions, priority ordering questions, audio and video questions and many “select all that apply” type questions on the exam.

Brittani also utilized a NCLEX Preparation text book that tested her knowledge, but more importantly gave her valuable strategies to successfully write the exam. Some of these strategies included looking at what the question was actually asking, eliminating distractors based on wording in the question, and distinguishing what type of question was being asked (application, knowledge, and analysis).

Things Brittani suggests exam candidates not do, include: do not try re-reading all your notes from the 3 years of nursing education; do not buy more than one reputable text book to prepare to write the NCLEX. She reiterated that it is important to start practicing NCLEX style questions well before the date on which the exam will be written.

Brittani successfully demonstrated her knowledge in her first writing of the exam. Brittani is currently employed at HSC Children’s Hospital in Winnipeg and is a role model for the students completing their Pediatric rotation. Students and faculty of the RRC BN Program congratulate Brittani on her success and thank her for sharing her experience with us.

Cindi graduated from the BN program in 2013 and shares a bit about her journey through senior practicum and into the role of Registered Nurse:

“I landed my first RN position in the float pool at Children’s hospital. More than a few nurses cringe when I tell them that I really enjoyed the work. To some, it’s a daunting thought to not have a “home”, but as a new RN I had not favoured a particular patient population yet and this gave me the opportunity to use my full range of skills with medicine, surgical and emergency patients. If you are a “go with the flow” type of person who enjoys a dynamic day, this may be a great job to start with to find your niche.

Currently, I work at Children’s Hospital in the pediatric intensive care unit. I have been here since April 2014, and have learned so much from the job and the great team I work with.

In the future, I plan to return to northern nursing. The experience I had during senior practice was unreal; like nothing I experienced during school or even now as an RN in the hospital. I found myself working with a wide variety of patients: children, older adults, chronic health issues, sexual health counseling, well babies, pre and post natal care, emergency care, and even medevacs. Getting to know the members of the community and seeing them at their best and worst, you really make a connection”.

Cindi also shares a bit of what she learned along the way that she wished she had known while she was a student:

“I wish someone would have told me how long it can take to be hired within WRHA. I was lucky enough to complete my senior practice in a northern nursing station (which was the best experience!). However, this left me without my foot in a Winnipeg hospital door. I was one of the last to secure a job after graduation- 3 of the longest months of my life; I applied for 63 jobs. My friends and family were very supportive, but nothing had prepared me for the disappointment I frequently felt during that period”.

And her words of wisdom and encouragement as current students venture forth:

“Ask questions…a lot of them…especially in your first few months. Maybe this isn’t the case for every unit- but I’ve worked on every unit in Children’s Hospital, and I have never received a negative response to asking questions.

I learn something new every single day. There is so much to know and things change quickly. It’s important to be flexible, and open to new information”.

The faculty of Red River College’s Baccalaureate of Nursing Program recently met the challenge to collect gently used or new children’s reading or activity books to donate to Knox Healthy Start Program in honour of “I Love to Read Month”.

The challenge was issued by Dianne Brown (BN Curriculum Coordinator) and Luanne Hill (course leader Community Health 2). This is the second collection drive of the school year in which the Faculty of Nursing Program is supporting the Healthy Start for Mom and Me Program. As posted in a previous blog, our first drive was in November when we collected warm clothing to support the participants of the program and a third drive is planned for April when we will be collecting clothing more appropriate for Winnipeg’s warm weather (yes there is warm weather coming for Winnipeg!).

Luanne’s course has used the Knox Healthy Start for Mom and Me Program as one their clinical sites for the past several years. Knox Church Healthy Start is run by Healthy Child Manitoba. This particular Healthy Start site is geared towards Health Promotion of new immigrant women and babies. Participants meet each week and attendance is approximately 70-90 adults at a time. They have over 17 translators on site for each of their language groups to provide interpretation of the health messages provided. The site sets up a table of give-away items including warm clothing, children’s books and toys, which is very popular. The books collected by faculty were dropped off by Susan Care (see photo) and her clinical group and were gladly received by our partners at Knox.

RRC Faculty is proud to support this valuable community resource!