SKC nursing program continues to expand
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PABLO — Mary Racine has always wanted to be a nurse, at least since age 11.
“I practically grew up in a hospital,” she jokes, half serious.
A native of Browning, Racine explained that many of her family members were diagnosed with cancer. As a young girl, she spent plenty of time in the hospital while family members were treated for the disease.
In this distressful time she found a role model in the nurses who were taking care of her sick loved ones, and she knew nursing was something she wanted to pursue.
Racine decided to attend Salish Kootenai College nursing school in her late 20s after completing her pre-nursing credits at Browning Community College.
“I like SKC because it’s small and a tribal college,” Racine explained. “There’s more one-on-one time with your instructors.”
And she’s not alone in that sentiment.
“I think it’s unique in the fact that (SKC) is smaller,” Retention Coordinator Debbie Bell said. “We know our students, their lives, strengths and weaknesses.”
According to the staff at SKC, the nursing program is a national, regional and state leader in American Indian Registered Nurse education.
Since its first graduating class in 1991, SKC has led the nation in the total number of Indian RN graduates.
And it’s growing.
In the past few years, the nursing program has expanded to include a Bachelor’s of Science Nursing Degree along with the Associate Nursing Degree. This year the school will admit its largest class with 46 students pursuing their ASN degree and who may have the opportunity to pursue a BSN degree.
The ASN degree allows graduates to take the nursing boards and become a registered nurse. In order to qualify for the BSN, a student must already work as a registered nurse and be working part-time.
After the classroom setting, student nurses are able to practice what they learned before entering the clinical setting in specialized nursing facilities.
The facilities include three sophisticated high-fidelity mannequins that simulate human responses. Student nurses can treat these simulated life-sized dolls and physically see the results, positive and negative in the patient.
It’s a system that protects the community and the nurses.
“It allows the students to feel comfortable,” SKC Nursing Instructor Tanya Archer said, “and allows them to have that foundation before they go into the clinical setting.”
Throughout both nursing programs, students are required to be dedicated, motivated, and exude excellent time-management skills, explained Bell.
“Expect it to be a full time job,” Bell said, explaining that nursing students study four times more than any other department.
Which is quite an obstacle, considering approximately 80 percent of nursing students have families of their own.
“It’s difficult … you have to bring your schoolwork home with you and you still have your duties as a mom and a wife,” Racine said. “I did a lot of studying from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.”
Currently, Racine works through a Building Effective AIDS Response grant at SKC. She specializes in training and prevention and leads a Women’s Hope Group. People of all ages and both genders come to Racine for HIV and chlamydia testing and counseling, two common sexually transmitted diseases.
Eventually, Racine would like to work with diabetes prevention in the Indian community.
It’s a disease that hits close to home with a husband and a child who suffer from type one diabetes. But she also sees its prevalence within the Indian population.
She admits that she may miss the clinical setting, but working in prevention is what she feels called to do.
“Nursing is broad,” explained another SKC graduate, Candace Brown. “You learn everything from how to deal with babies to how to deal with the dying.”
In contrast to Racine, Brown works at the Indian Health Services Clinic in St. Ignatius as a clinical nurse.
“To provide the best care, you have to know someone’s culture,” Brown said.
“If you are unaware of something, you may be afraid of it,” she added.
Besides the supportive staff and rigorous course load, Brown explained that the cultural element really helped in her transition from student nurse to nurse.
And of course, a strong community element that focuses on helping the individual student succeed.
Services such as childcare, online classes, writing tutors and flexibility make it easier for working mothers and fathers to go back to school and improve their careers and the community they work in.
“We want (nursing students) to succeed,” Archer explained. “Not just for statistics but we want them to succeed in the community.”
