By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The laboratory facilities for Bowling Green State University’s new School of Nursing are nearing completion.
Last week, Bowling Green State University trustees got an early look at the new labs located in the annex of what is now Central Hall, the former home of the College of Business. The simulation labs will be on the second floor and the skill labs will be on the third floor.
The labs are expected to be finished early June.
BGSU has about 60 nursing students ready to enter that phase of their training with about 120 first-year students expressing interest in the program.
Once the message gets out that students will be able to complete all four years of their training here, the program “will be an easy sell,” said Cecilia Castellano, the vice president for enrollment management.
The goal is to graduate 80 nurses a year, that would be 60 more than BGSU now graduates through its program with the University of Toledo. That program is ending.
Last year, the trustees approved the creation of a School of Nursing and a Bachelor of Nursing Science.
The move comes as BGSU is developing its offerings in health care including establishing a doctorate in physical therapy.
The $3 million project is being designed by Bostwick Design Partnership, the same firm that worked on the Firelands nursing facilities.
April Smucker, the associate vice president for capital planning and campus operations, said that the Firelands facilities served as a model. The labs on the Bowling Green campus will use much of the same technology as on the Firelands campus. That will make it seamless for faculty who teach on both campuses.
James Ciesla, dean of the College of Health and Human Services, said that a shortage of simulation facilities is a limiting factor in the ability to educate nurses. So BGSU needs to make sure it has enough for the 80 students in each class.
Simulation is increasingly important , he said, especially in high risk practices such as obstetrics and gynecology. Hospitals, he said, are less and less willing to have students learning within those practices. For students who want to specialize the university will be able to place them.
Having the labs also saves the university the money of having to hire “an army” of clinical faculty to work with students in numerous hospitals around the region.
BGSU will have about 150 health care institutions to take nurses when they do go out for clinical experiences.
Ciesla said that the facility will have other uses as well. Wood County Hospital staff could use it for continuing education.
Trustee Russell Martin, the Delaware County Sheriff, noted that there is an acute shortage of forensic nurses. Ciesla agreed that there are possibilities for working with the university’s forensic science programing.
Ciesla said there’s a lot of excitement in the health care community about the School of Nursing. The Wood County Hospital Foundation has already donated $100,000 to the program.
“This facility and program has been a friend-making opportunity for BGSU,” he said.
National Trustee George Miller, the president and CEO of Loretto Hospital in Chicago, said he was impressed with the labs. “The fact that BGSU took the initiative in this endeavor will help eliminate the shortage in nurses.”
