Nursing students looking to gain a wide scope of experience should consider doing their practicum in a rural community says Donalda Wotton, the former director of clinical education at the College of Nursing. In the city, nursing students usually get placed on a unit specializing in one area. While they gain a deep understanding of that one unit, students may miss out on broader experiences. In rural communities, hospitals are more generalized. Students work closely with multidisciplinary teams and the community on a variety of cases.
“You don’t necessarily get the same experience from being on a busy unit at our tertiary care facilities like St. Boniface, the Grace Hospital or Health Science Centre. There are specialists and resources for everything. Whereas in rural Manitoba, you’ve got to be a little bit more of a Jack of all trades,” Wotton says. “It’s an opportunity to pull everything you’ve learned together and challenge yourself.”
The Northern Nursing Senior Practicum Option gives students the chance to go out to rural communities during their final 500 hour consolidation experience in senior practicum. Funding for travel and lodging is provided. The program was resurrected in December 2020 after Manitoba Health, Shared Health and Northern Regional Health Authority contacted UM.
In fall 2021, fourth-year students pre-senior practicum were placed for six weeks in Steinbach, Churchill, Selkirk, Gimli, Dauphin, Swan River, Boundary Trails, and Lake Manitoba First Nation. Students were supported by the Northern and Rural Placement program supported through Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.
Even if students aren’t planning to work in a rural community, Wotton encourages students to sign up to try a rural placement. She says the students who participate in these placements are gaining a valuable perspective on the province’s health care system and the health care complexities outside of Winnipeg.
“What is it like for a patient to drive two and a half hours from a First Nations community and come into the city for dialysis three times a week? It’s important to have that understanding of distance and access,” says Wotton. “Even if students don’t end up working in a rural area they can get a chance to learn what the health care experience is like for a rural people.”
This experience is crucial to help student nurses understand what kind of care is accessible for people who live in rural communities and how nurses can adjust their care and discharge planning to best serve them.
“Students can get a sense of what kinds of services these patients need. If a person does live four hours out of town, students can figure out what they could do to help families so they don’t have to drive in for four hours? Can a phone follow-up help? Or if they have to come in, how can we coordinate care so that they can see their specialists at the same time?” says Wotton.
Wotton, herself from rural Manitoba, did a work placement in a rural community in Saskatchewan when she was a nursing student. Since then, she has worked in Southern Health, Fisher River First Nation, Cross Lake, and Norway House.
“Northern and rural opportunities build confidence because students are seeing people present with a variety of health care needs, rather than focusing on one patient population. Living within the community also allows students to understand the broader aspects of health including the community strengths to support people once they are home from hospital.”