WELLINGTON COUNTY – Wellington County is set to experience a surge in the demand for nurses in the coming years as the population continues to grow and age.
With the health care industry rapidly evolving and expanding, the role of nurses is becoming increasingly important.
College students from several schools across the province met on April 28 at Groves Memorial Community Hospital for orientation in the extern program.
Though their experience levels and fields of study vary, they’re all working toward a career in nursing in some capacity.
The extern program is fairly new, especially to hospitals within Wellington County.
Externs are student nurses hired on as employees who use the skills they’ve learned in school to help at the hospital.
Mount Forest residents Kyle Bray and Shakira Dicks, close friends for several years, have been encouraging each other as they progress in their education.
Dicks lost both of her parents to cancer and has been working in health care ever since.
“Kyle and I are family friends and we both got very involved in health care through my dad being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer,” Dicks said.
“We both ended up getting really involved going to his appointments, and everything else in between.”
Bray studied at Cambrian College in Sudbury and has experience working at the Health Sciences North Hospital.
“I’ve worked as an extern already, so I think a lot of the responsibilities and tasks here are going to be the same,” Bray said.
“I’d like to go back to become a registered nurse, but I want to be in trauma nursing, working in the intensive care unit or emergency room.”
Dicks attended Fleming College in Peterborough and aspires to work in oncology nursing.
“I just want my patients to feel comfortable and know that we’re here to give them the best care possible,” she said. “That’s what we’re here for, and at the end of the day, it’s their life. If I can make it a little bit better, it makes my day.”
Dicks said she believes it’s important for anyone thinking of working in health care to get exposure to the industry.
“Get in, get your foot in the door. Even if it’s just a smaller position, get the experience,” she said.
“Learn how to communicate, because you’re going to be working with people all day, so you want to be comfortable talking with people and getting to know them.”
The Wellington Health Care Alliance (WHCA), comprised of Groves, Palmerston and District Hospital, and Louise Marshall Hospital in Mount Forest, also offers a co-op program for high school students.
Centre Wellington District High School student Alanna Wilkinson started her co-op placement last September, working three hours a day at Groves.
“I come in the morning working with the nursing units, and I’m usually assigned to a nurse or a PSW (personal support worker) if the nurses are busy,” she said.
“They show me different things like IVs, or how to assess new patients.”
Wilkinson works with patients and would like to become a registered practical nurse, but she does not yet have a preferred field.
“I’ve always wanted to be a nurse, so I thought that doing a co-op at the hospital would give me more experience,” she said. “The staff here are great and have been very helpful showing me how to help patients.”
Manager of quality and risk Gianni Accettola has worked for WHCA for 15 years. He started as a frontline practicing nurse and has since moved into a leadership and management role.
“When it comes to on-boarding for any co-op student or extern, we have a general orientation program for all new hires. There’s a general intake that includes a three-day process for nursing related or clinical staff,” Accettola said.
“Students are assigned someone for the semester, and if it’s an extern, they’re on-boarded for a number of weeks, typically on the unit with a preceptor before being released to work.”
Checklists are in place to ensure new hires only act within their scope. Anything beyond that is deferred to the most responsible nurse present. Preceptors are carefully selected and paired with students either in house or through external colleges.
“We’re very serious about our training program. If we make a mistake, it can be very serious, so we definitely do our due diligence to ensure there’s a thorough on-boarding process,” Accettola said.
Externs are generally in their third or fourth year when hired and have at least two years’ experience with patient interaction and development of basic frontline skills.
They will typically have more knowledge than a PSW or health care aide, but are not yet registered.
“We all understand that there is a lot of emotion involved with care, and that no one wants to be in a hospital. We have various processes in place to offer supportive and therapeutic communication,” Accettola said.
“We want to support our local students by giving them the ability to assess whether something they’re interested in is ultimately going to work for them.
“Having frontline experience is amazing for them, especially if they have an interest in a particular field.”
Groves tends to accept more co-op students than hospitals in Palmerston and Mount Forest, due to its size and training capacity, but opportunities exist for students at all three hospitals.
