College of New Rochelle Offers Certificate in
Palliative Care
The College of New
Rochelle (CNR) School of Nursing recently announced that
it will offer a Post-Master’s Certificate
in Palliative Care beginning in January, 2006. In so doing,
CNR will become the first college in Westchester—and
only the 15th in the nation—to offer the Certificate
in Palliative Care that provides nurses with in-depth skills
that are required to properly care for terminally ill patients.
The new course of study,
recently approved by the New York State Department of Education,
is designed to meet the growing need for providing chronic
health care services to patients in hospices, homes and hospital
settings. “People are
living longer, and as a result, there is a rapidly growing
need for chronic health care services,” said Dr. Donna
Demarest, Dean of CNR’s School of Nursing. “Hospitals
and other healthcare providers are looking to hire nurses who
specialize in palliative care, and the demand is expected to
increase dramatically. We are offering this new educational
track with the goal of helping to meet this need.”
Dr. Demarest explained
that the courses will provide students with both traditional
classroom learning and training in real-life settings. The
introductory course, for example, will give students a holistic
overview of patients and families—their diverse
needs and expectations regarding the body, mind, and spirit.
As part of their training each student in the program will
then work with patients in hospice programs to learn the dimensions
of suffering, loss, grief and bereavement and to develop relationships
with individual patients.
Students will examine “best practice” models
of palliative care. The program will also analyze the legal
and moral/ethical issues related to palliative care and the
kinds of decisions that must be made at the end of life.
To be eligible for
enrollment in the new Palliative Care certificate program,
students must already hold a master’s degree
in nursing. Palliative Care certification will require 18 course
credit hours and 550 hours of practical work. As is the case
with CNR’s master’s degree programs, the size of
the Palliative Care Certificate classes will be small. Limiting
class sizes to approximately 10 students enables quality instruction
and close interaction with faculty members.
The Palliative Care
Certificate fits very well with CNR’s
existing holistic and caring/healing philosophy, a tradition
at the School of Nursing. The first in the nation to offer
a master’s program in holistic nursing, the CNR School
of Nursing recently announced that it will offer a new Nurse
Educator master’s program starting with the fall semester
2005. In addition, CNR plans to construct a $25 million, 60,000-square-foot
holistic Wellness Center. When it opens in 2007, the Wellness
Center—unique in the New York metropolitan area—will
bring together and integrate multiple disciplines to help students
understand and practice the principles of healthy living and
wellness throughout their lives.#
