October 9, 2019
CHI St. Alexius Health-Garrison to train Registered Nurses
BY DIANE NEWBERRY
The classroom looks pretty standard for college-level instruction: an intimate setting with office chairs and work tables, surrounded by the new technology that dominates modern education. In the adjacent room, Joe the mannequin awaits nurses-in-training to practice everything from taking his blood pressure to preforming a rectal exam.
It all seems to be your standard nursing education program, but it’s not on a faraway campus in Fargo, Grand Forks or Bismarck. It’s right here at CHI St. Alexius Health-Garrison, and it’s expanding.
The hospital’s nursing program has already graduated four Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and next August, they are set to expand into a full-fledged Register Nurse (RN) program.
“LPNs are great, but they’re limited in the scope of their practice, so the more LPNs we convert to RNs, the better off we’ll be,” Tod Graeber, hospital administrator, said.
LPNs require fewer semesters of training than RNs and cannot preform all of the functions of an RN, such as patient education or inserting IVs.
It all seems to be your standard nursing education program, but it’s not on a faraway campus in Fargo, Grand Forks or Bismarck. It’s right here at CHI St. Alexius Health-Garrison, and it’s expanding.
The hospital’s nursing program has already graduated four Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and next August, they are set to expand into a full-fledged Register Nurse (RN) program.
“LPNs are great, but they’re limited in the scope of their practice, so the more LPNs we convert to RNs, the better off we’ll be,” Tod Graeber, hospital administrator, said.
LPNs require fewer semesters of training than RNs and cannot preform all of the functions of an RN, such as patient education or inserting IVs.
