A delegation of nursing instructors from China are in Calgary to see how Canadian nurses are trained and how the rest of the world is dealing with its aging populations.
China is facing an increase in demand for long-term care and educators there wanted to see what types of tools and teaching methodologies are available in Canada to train nurses.
On Monday, the group from the Guanghua International Nursing Education Alliance was at Bow Valley College and spent the day in the classroom and at the facility's nursing simulation centre.
“They have recently had a big boom in their continuing care needs, so they're looking at external resources, they're looking to partner with external resources, to learn how and what we're doing, best practices and what resources we're using,” said Ashley Holloway, Clinical Placement Officer at Bow Valley College.
The college has worked with other international organizations in the past and an interpreter was on hand to translate so everything was understood clearly.
The goal is for the delegates to take the best practices they learn here and share them with colleges back in China.
“I think it's a worthwhile journey because this training is very good, very good to us. A lot of new knowledge, yes, it's practical nursing education to us,” said instructor Peng Wang.
“Through the communication with different institutions in Alberta we saw many commonalities and differences in nursing education between these two areas,” said Lisa Gong through an interpreter.
The group will be visiting long-term care facilities on Tuesday before heading home to share what they've learned.
