Program to help train health workers for the North

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Students in Northern Saskatchewan thinking about a career in the health field will get some assistance in reaching their goal, thanks to a new access program being launched this fall.

The Northern Health Science Access program, announced June 20, will be delivered at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC) Northern campus in Prince Albert. The program, being offered in collaboration with the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology (SIAST) and the University of Saskatchewan, will provide students wanting to study any area of health sciences with an opportunity to upgrade or add to their education in preparation for further studies. Partners in the access program include First Nations and Metis organizations, Saskatchewan Health, Saskatchewan Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training, and Saskatchewan Education.

"The access program is constructed similarly to other access programs around the country," explained Marlene Smadu, principal nursing advisor with Saskatchewan Health.

"The research has shown that if you can provide an opportunity for students to either make up deficits, so for instance, it they haven't had a chance to do chemistry or physics, or to beef up some of their learning in those areas before they actually get into a health professions program, that their success rate will be higher. And so the courses will include some, in a sense, almost Grade 12 equivalency, or things that first year university students might have to take, too, if they didn't have access to those courses in high school.

"But there will be more focus on really preparing people with the knowledge that they need in order to be able to be successful in, for instance, anatomy and physiology, or the courses that require the higher sciences," Smadu said.

"It'll be focusing on building skills in science, math and English, and getting people ready to enter into a health professions program. There will be some focus on study skills and some of the other things that, you know, just prepare you to be a student in a program that is going to be quite rigourous. It won't matter which health profession program it is. We know that the workloads are pretty heavy, and there's a lot of studying and paper writing involved. So some of that preparation will be for that as well."

Joyce Still is a member of the committee involved in putting the access program together, and is nursing program coordinator for the post-RN program offered at SIFC Northern campus.

She said there has already been quite a bit of interest in the access program, which will be able to accommodate up to 40 students for the first intake.

"This program itself, the idea of an access program, is new for us at SIFC, but we are utilizing classes that we already have in existence. And also our partners, who are offering up part of the classes, like the sciences particularly for SIAST, those classes are already also created. So this program, really, was brought together with classes that we had already pretty well had created."

Although much of the program is simply an amalgamation of existing classes under one roof, a few new features have been added. One of those new features is professional shadowing.

"Students will get a taste of any career that they're interested in, whether its nursing, or dental therapy or lab or LPN. So this will give them a chance to just really see what their career choice is all about," Still said.

In addition to the academic aspects, the access program will also help support the students in other areas.

"We're trying to put in as many supports to ensure success as possible. That includes the class time itself, part of the academic preparation, study skills, living skills, as well as we'll have a counsellor that's involved directly with the program from the beginning," Stills said.

"This is open to all health sciences. It's to help prepare students to meet the entrance requirements for those programs. It's going to givethem a really sound base in English, math and sciences, which are prerequisites for health programming. And our understanding is that this is something that is desperately needed, not only in the north, but throughout Saskatchewan and Canada as well."

In addition to the new access program, another initiative to improve access to health science careers is also being developed.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between SIFC and its partners on June 20, paving the way for the offering of the access program, and also setting the groundwork for development of a nursing degree program for Northern Saskatchewan.

Although work on developing the nursing degree program is just getting underway, Smadu expects the program will be phased in, starting by offering the first year, then adding an additional year as the students in the program move forward in their studies. Although a date for having the degree program in place has yet to be set, Smadu said discussions so far have been about having something in place by the time the first intake of students finish up the access program.

According to the MOU, the proposed northern nursing degree program will use the nursing curriculum currently being used in Saskatchewan, with First Nations and Metis cultural, spiritual and health care needs incorporated throughout.