Bringing Nursing Education to the Circumpolar North
The University of Saskatchewan College of Nursing has been successful in bringing nursing education to rural and remote parts of Saskatchewan using remote presence technology, in the form of robots. Now, we are looking to help other universities deliver quality nursing education to geographically challenged locations as well.
These robots connect faculty located at College of Nursing urban sites with students in the rural and remote communities of Yorkton, La Ronge and Ile-a-la-Crosse. As a member of the UArctic Northern Nursing Education Network, University of Saskatchewan’s Dr. Lorna Butler and her team want to help other universities deliver quality nursing education to geographically challenged locations in the Circumpolar North, in particular Greenland.
“In Greenland, as well as across the Circumpolar countries, the delivery of health services in northern regions continues to be significantly impacted by rurality and geographical isolation,” said Dr. Butler. “While universities are well positioned to lead the process of developing a local health professional workforce in northern communities, providing on-site opportunities for post-secondary education has been a significant challenge.”
Butler’s project, An Innovative Pathway for A Culturally Relevant Health Workforce: A Greenlandic Model for Interprofessional Education, is a partnership with Ilisimatusarfik - The University of Greenland and UIT - The Arctic University of Norway and includes members of the University of Saskatchewan including Drs. Heather Exner-Pirot and Lois Berry, Emmy Neuls, Stan Yu and Joelena Leader.
The University of Saskatchewan College of Nursing was the first University to use remote presence technology to deliver nursing education. Dr. Butler and her team plan to take what they’ve learned to help others in the Circumpolar North to do the same. “Distributed learning, offers a viable approach to addressing the current challenges encountered by the nursing program at Ilisimatusarfik,” said Dr. Butler. “We are building on the lessons learned from the Northern Nursing Education Network to use the Kingdom of Denmark UArctic funding to host workshops and the first interprofessional innovative learning institute. The project will take place between October 2017 and June 2019 in both Greenland and Norway to develop an action plan to help other institutions across the Circumpolar regions implement distributed learning, provide training and resources to build capacity among educators, staff and administration, prepare recommendations for presentations across the Circumpolar North and ultimately, prepare a report for distribution in December 2019 focusing on our findings and recommendations from community engagement in distributed learning in health education.”