麻豆约拍


Next level nursing

Faculty profile: Dwayne Pettyjohn, Associate Chair of Camosun's Nursing department

Dwayne Pettyjohn, Chair of Nursing

Camosun instructor Dwayne Pettyjohn prepares for Camosun鈥檚 innovative new health centre

When Dwayne Pettyjohn was working as an ambulance attendant in Toronto, he decided to pursue nursing because it combined helping others with an opportunity to learn transferable skills.

鈥淚鈥檝e always been interested in health care and how nursing opens up a variety of portable career paths,鈥 he explains. 鈥淵ou can go around the world and work, in both urban and rural settings, within a hospital as well as out in the community. Even more so today, health care is increasingly focussed on community partnerships and lifelong learning and it鈥檚 very exciting that Camosun will be at the forefront of those trends with our new health centre.鈥

Pettyjohn grew up in Trail, attended UBC and then moved to Toronto for work and to attend Humber College. He then relocated to Victoria to enrol in the combined 麻豆约拍 and University of Victoria nursing degree program, graduating in 1996. After working for several years in the emergency room at Victoria General Hospital, he started teaching at Camosun in 2006. Since 2010, he鈥檚 served as the year two program leader and is now the Associate Chair of the Nursing Department. 鈥淚 love teaching, and the positive interactions with students learning new things,鈥 he says. 鈥淚 really enjoy coming to work every day.鈥

Pettyjohn鈥檚 roots in our community and at Camosun give him a unique perspective on trends in nursing and changes in the health care field. 鈥淲hen I first started, we had a certain curriculum and now what is expected of today鈥檚 nurses has changed dramatically since I graduated,鈥 he explains. 鈥淔or the longest time as a society we鈥檝e thought of needing health care solely in terms of going to a hospital setting, now many patients are living out in the community and today鈥檚 nurses need a different skill set to operate within a community setting.鈥

Societal changes have also fuelled a health care revolution. 鈥淲e鈥檙e living in more of a multicultural society and that cultural aspect of health care has certainly come to the forefront,鈥 he says. 鈥淎s well, with reconciliation, keeping that Indigenous lens in play is important so we need to prepare students with that understanding as they enter the workforce, promoting lifelong learning and providing them with the skills to navigate and access knowledge as they advance their career and society changes.鈥

As Camosun鈥檚 new Alex & Jo Campbell Centre for Health and Wellness at Camosun takes shape at Interurban campus, Pettyjohn can anticipate its impact on his students. 鈥淢oving into the new building will help in multiple aspects,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 designed to create the kind of learning environment that is comfortable, safe and positive, and that creates an organic educational experience for students and faculty.鈥

He notes that today鈥檚 nurses are increasingly called upon to make independent decisions and the new building will prepare students for that shift. 鈥淣urses are taking on more and more responsibilities to serve patients,鈥 says Pettyjohn. 鈥淣urses are the largest group of health care professionals in Canada and as government and our regulatory body increases what we call our scope of practice, nurses will be making more independent decisions. We are educating our nursing students so that they have that knowledge base, clinical judgment skills and access to the latest health information to make the best decisions for their patients.鈥

That new approach to nursing education is embedded into the overall design of the new health centre, which focuses on innovative technology and applied learning. 鈥淚n the new building we will be able to expose our students more and more to a variety of clinical practice settings and diverse populations using cutting edge technology, as well giving them more clinical hours that are crucial to their professional development.鈥

The new health centre, slated to open in 2019, will bring together the majority of Camosun鈥檚 health programs in the same physical space. That, explains Pettyjohn will transform education by actively promoting students and faculty learning together. 鈥淥rganic conversations are so important to learning about the latest thinking and approaches in health care,鈥 he says. 鈥淲hen everybody鈥檚 in the same place, those interactions are going to happen and they will foster interdisciplinary learning.鈥

The new centre features an open concept design that maximises light and collaborative spaces, highlighting next level learning in its structural design. Pettyjohn notes that when it opens in 2019, he and his colleagues will be ready. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to set the stage for the transformation of health care education at Camosun and in our region,鈥 he says. 鈥淲e鈥檒l be ready to hit the ground running.鈥

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