Georgian’s new Nursing and Wellness Wing at the Owen Sound Campus will have an extraordinary impact on community health and the staffing of health-care facilities throughout the region. Georgian officially opened the newly transformed wing on Sept. 22, in preparation for the Honours Bachelor of Science – Nursing degree program that launched this fall at both the Owen Sound and Barrie campuses.
The $7.1-million renovation transformed over 10,000 square feet at the campus. This state-of-the-art Nursing and Wellness Wing provides space and technology for students in nursing, Personal Support Worker, Police Foundations, and other programs. Students will have the opportunity to work side-by-side in an inter-professional approach, just as they will in their future careers.
Kevin Weaver, President and CEO of Georgian College, said the new Nursing and Wellness wing is an incredibly exciting and historic milestone for Georgian.
“We’ve created something special here at the Owen Sound Campus, with programs geared toward meeting the needs of local employers and opportunity to strengthen our community connections,” said Weaver. “It was a community effort to get to this point, and today would not be possible without the hard work of our students, employees and the generous support from the local community, government and industry donors who went above and beyond contributing not only to the renovation of this campus but supporting new awards and bursaries for our students.”
In this purpose-built space, students will be able to expand their skills, react to complex patient scenarios, and have room to make mistakes and learn from them in safe, supportive and digitally-enabled labs.
The signature multi-purpose classroom is larger than a standard classroom and is set up as a hybrid learning space. It’s equipped with two large, flat-screen monitors for video playback that allows for live streaming of the simulations in the apartment space and other labs, and is where students and participants can observe, critique, and debrief after the simulated experience in larger numbers.
The teaching apartment will be used for home visit training and provides a safe and fault-forging environment, prior to real-life application with patients. In this lab, nursing and other health-care students will learn scenarios such as providing wound care to post-surgical patients.
The new wing also includes the addition of two flex skills labs, where students will interact with high-fidelity manikins and gain hands-on experience, inside real-life pods resembling hospital rooms and two high-fidelity simulation labs that emulate an Intensive Care Unit.
“Having these kind of facilities enables us to stay on top of how the nursing profession is utilizing new technology in the provision of care, enabling us to give our patients the finest treatment possible,” said Madison Lindsay, a third-semester Practical Nursing student who has studied in both the former and new spaces. “The best learning for students is experiential learning, which is what our new wing provides. We’ll now gain experience in a variety of nursing-related areas and it will help us all be practice ready.”
Following the official opening invited guests were given a tour of the new wing and enjoyed a small reception.
Interested in applying for the nursing degree? Applications open October 1st for the September 2023 intake.
Source: media release
