{"id":99534,"date":"2018-05-23T03:58:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T09:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pueblo-community-college-to-add-bachelors-degree-in-nursing\/"},"modified":"2018-05-23T03:58:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T09:58:50","slug":"pueblo-community-college-to-add-bachelors-degree-in-nursing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pueblo-community-college-to-add-bachelors-degree-in-nursing\/","title":{"rendered":"Pueblo Community College to add bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kirchner\"
Kirchner<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Pueblo Community College, including its campuses in Mancos and Durango, will offer an online program for a bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing in fall 2019.<\/p>\n

\"Pueblo
Pueblo Community College will offer a new online program to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing beginning in the fall of 2019.<\/span>Courtesy of Pueblo Community College<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Paula Kirchner, who will soon assume the duties of dean of nursing at PCC<\/a>, said students first will have to get their associate degree in nursing and pass their state board exams before pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing.<\/p>\n

During the program, Kirchner said, students will be paired with a preceptor, a practicing nurse to shadow as they complete practicum hours. The nursing faculty will assist students in finding their preceptors, she said.<\/p>\n

The campuses in Mancos and Durango go by the name Pueblo Community College Southwest.<\/p>\n

During this year\u2019s session of the Colorado General Assembly, lawmakers passed House Bill 1086<\/a>, which allowed community colleges to offer Bachelor of Science degrees in nursing. Gov. John Hickenlooper allowed it to become law without his signature.<\/p>\n

Four-year bachelor\u2019s degrees in nursing typically have been bestowed by four-year colleges, not community colleges. But lawmakers who supported the measure said the demand for nurses isn\u2019t being met.<\/p>\n

PCC President Patty Erjavec told The Durango Herald when the bill passed the Legislature that PCC\u2019s program will allow nurses to earn a bachelor\u2019s degree without leaving the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will just elevate that level of care for our citizens, especially in the rural areas, she said.<\/p>\n

She expects enrollment in the program will grow faster than numbers of students in registered nursing classes because it won\u2019t be limited by the number of hours that students must spend in medical settings.<\/p>\n

In addition to the new degree, PCC will create a Division of Nursing to accommodate its growing programs.<\/p>\n

The division will begin operating July 1 under the leadership of Kirchner, who will become dean of the Nursing Division. She currently serves as interim director of the nursing program and is a longtime PCC instructor.<\/p>\n

The programs included in the Division of Nursing are nursing programs, surgical technology, psychiatric technician, medical assistant, nurse\u2019s aide and certified addiction counselor.<\/p>\n

Kirchner graduated from PCC\u2019s nursing program in 1994. She received a bachelor\u2019s in nursing from Colorado State University-Pueblo in 2006 and a master\u2019s from Regis University in 2011.<\/p>\n

She was a registered nurse at Parkview Medical Center for 22 years, 16 of them as nurse manager of the Kidsville Pediatric Unit.<\/p>\n

In 2011, she returned to PCC as a faculty member in the nursing program; she has been interim director since October 2017.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students will shadow practicing nurses in the area<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[156,155],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-adult-education","tag-education"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99534"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}