McMaster trains nurse practitioners at Conestoga College

Kitchener area students attending the Ontario
Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner program at McMaster University don't
have to commute to the Hamilton campus. They're taking their classes at
Conestoga College Institute of Technology
and Advanced Learning.

In a unique collaboration, McMaster and Conestoga have arranged for classes,
tutorials and lab time for the nurse practitioner students to be spent at the
college's Doon
campus on Doon Valley Drive. Clinical work will be done at Kitchener-Guelph
area medical practices.

This fall 13 students have enrolled for McMaster's one-year certificate
program hosted at Conestoga. There are an additional 13 students in the program
at the Hamilton campus. All are nurses with their Bachelor of Health Sciences
(Nursing) degree.

Primary health care nurse practitioners are expert nurses with additional education
and skills to provide and respond to primary health care needs. Often the front-line
of Ontario's healthcare, they are able to diagnose and treat everyday
illnesses and injuries and order some prescriptions and laboratory tests, but
on a more limited scale than a physician. They also work in health promotion,
such as nutrition, assist patients in managing chronic diseases such as asthma,
diabetes or high blood pressure, and help in prevention of illness.

Graduates are in demand as the province has increased nurse practitioner positions
in the health care system, partly due to the shortage of physicians, and in
responding to the Ontario government's initiative which places increased
emphasis on primary health care.

We firmly believe in the value of teaching health professionals in the
community where they live and where they will work, says Dr. John Kelton,
dean and vice-president of McMaster's Faculty
of Health Sciences.

We have an excellent relationship with Conestoga College with our established
nursing program consortium, and this development extends our partnership.

John Tibbits, president of Conestoga College says, Conestoga views this
agreement as an enhancement of our own reputation for excellence in health sciences
education, and as an advancement of the productive relationship we have enjoyed
with McMaster University through the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.

I consider the availability of the nurse practitioner program as an
important step forward in the quality and diversity of health care in our region,
consistent with the essential new directions in the field advocated by the Government
of Ontario.”

McMaster and Conestoga, along with Mohawk
College in Hamilton, have had a collaborative program for the Bachelor of
Science (Nursing) program since 2001. Nursing students attend at one of the
three campus locations for the four-year, fully integrated program based on
McMaster's curriculum and using a problem-based and small-group learning
approach. Graduates receive McMaster degrees.