New and returning students to the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing will enjoy even more opportunities for hands-on learning and clinical experience thanks to the opening of a new, state-of-the-art clinical learning space and health care simulation lab celebrated yesterday at Trent University.

At the official grand opening, guests were guided through the newly-expanded clinical learning centre, which is a primary health care simulation space. The new space, which reflects the School’s ongoing commitment to clinical expertise will provide Trent’s nursing students, and students of partner programs, with the opportunity to practice in a setting that would mimic where patients would meet with their family practice nurse, nurse practitioner, physician or other health care providers – equipping them for success in the field after graduation.

“The space will be used to facilitate clinical learning for nursing students at Trent, as well as for students in the Queen’s Primary Care Nurse Practitioner program,” explains Dr. Kirsten Woodend, dean of the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing. “Trent’s nursing students will have the opportunity to experience practice in a primary care setting and to improve therapeutic communication with patients and family in that setting. We hope that in coming years this space will also be used by other health professionals working in the primary care sector in order to increase the inter-professional learning opportunities for our students.”

A simulation experience is an attempt to replicate an authentic clinical experience in order to provide students with a safe space to practice skills, techniques, and critical reasoning, prior to an encounter with the general public. Currently students at Trent participate in numerous forms of simulation starting in their first term in the program, these two new primary care spaces will offer leading edge technology which give students the opportunity to practice their technical, critical thinking and decision making skills.

“Being part of the Clinical Learning Center team during my studies at Trent University gave me further insight into the problem solving and critical thinking needed for the nursing profession,” said Alex Horodnyk ‘12 a recent graduate of the program who is now working at Peterborough Regional Health Centre. “The clinical learning centre I had access to as a student provided a safe, and educational environment for me to excel as a student and as a nurse.”

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For more information, please contact:

Kathryn Verhulst-Rogers
Manager, Communications
705-748-1011 x6182
kathrynverhulst@trentu.ca