UPEI pleased with announcement of new accelerated nursing program
Starting in January 2009, the University of Prince Edward Island’s School of Nursing will offer an accelerated nursing degree program for people who have university degrees and want to enter the nursing profession.
The provincial government announced funding support for the program in the throne speech on Friday, April 4.
Dr. Kim Critchley, dean of the UPEI School of Nursing, is thrilled with the news.
“This program is a great step forward for nursing education on P.E.I. and for nursing as a profession,” she said, “and we thank the provincial government for its support. There is a lot of demand for an accelerated nursing program here.”
Students who are accepted into the 14-seat program could earn their bachelor of science degree in nursing in as little as two years. In six months, they will complete the work normally done in the first two years of a four-year degree, and will then merge into the third year of the four-year program.
To be admitted to the program, students must have completed an undergraduate degree with a minimum average of 75 per cent, as well as credit courses in human anatomy, physiology, microbiology, developmental psychology, introductory psychology and nutrition, statistics, English and another three electives.
Students will be admitted to the program this June and will have the opportunity in the fall to complete the required non-nursing courses they need to begin the program in January 2009.
The first class will complete the program in December 2010 and will be eligible to write the Canadian registered nursing exam in February 2011. The school worked with the Association of Nurses of Prince Edward Island to ensure that students who successfully complete the program can write their Canadian registered nursing exams before they actually graduate. They will get their clinical experience at Island health institutions in the summer months, opposite that of students in the four-year program.
Critchley stressed that the accelerated program will give students the same excellent education and training as the four-year program.
“Accelerated does not mean abbreviated,” she said. “Students who take the accelerated program will receive the same high quality of education and training as those in the standard four-year program.”
Accelerated baccalaureate programs have grown in Canada at a rapid rate. In 2004, there were 31 baccalaureate accelerated programs across the country. They are intense, vigorous and compressed programs, with high standards, and tend to attract mature students who have diverse work and educational backgrounds, and who have demonstrated high levels of motivation, enthusiasm, eagerness and ambition.
