ALLEGANY, N.Y. — Visitors to instruction spaces in St. Bonaventure University’s Dennis R. DePerro School of Health Professions can find themselves forgetting they’re not actually in a medical examination room, intensive care unit or recovery ward.

It’s that kind of realism, as close to live clinical settings as possible for students, that Dr. Connie Perkins strives for as the founding director of SBU’s Department of Nursing. The Shinglehouse, Pa., native has made it the school’s mission to prepare nursing students — clinically, intellectually, even emotionally — at the highest levels possible as they embark on or elevate careers in such a critically needed profession.

On a day leading up to National Nurses Week (May 6-12), Perkins discussed the progress St. Bonaventure’s still-young nursing program has made as well as one of her core purposes in leading the school: training skilled nurses while serving and maintaining connections with the rural healthcare systems that serve the Twin Tiers region where she grew up.

“It’s more important now than ever” to be training nurses, Perkins said during a tour of the school in Francis Hall. “Especially with registered nurses and RNs on the Bachelor of Science level, the pandemic put us in such a crisis regarding the need for nurses across the board. … When I meet a person who might be thinking about nursing, but they aren’t sure about working in direct care, I want to show them what this area offers.”

Within the overall School of Health Professions, St. Bonaventure has three nursing programs:

• RN to B.S. in Nursing: Started in 2019, a two-year program, blending face-to-face and online instruction, enabling registered nurses to earn a bachelor’s degree.

• Dual Degree Nursing Program: Started in 2021, a blended campus program shared by partners SBU and SUNY Jamestown Community College in which students earn an Associate of Applied Science in Nursing from JCC and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from SBU.

Perkins, who has also instructed nurses at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, was effusive in her praise of JCC, noting that a recent graduating class achieved a 100% pass rate on boards testing — this despite a complete overhaul of the test questions. “To not only get 100% any year is amazing, but when the testing changed so much. … Right here in our community we’re so proud to be a partner of (JCC) because of their achievement.”

• Master’s Entry to Practice (MEP): Started in 2023, a 71-credit program that prepares a student who already holds a Bachelor of Science degree in another discipline to become a registered nurse. It’s only the second such program offered in New York state, joining Columbia University.

THE VARIATION of programs allows for choice and flexibility for nursing students, Perkins said, given their individual points in careers and perhaps their overall goals. She fervently supports and credits all who commit to careers in nursing at any training level, but she offers that SBU’s programs provide “next-level” training in critical care and can make a difference for anyone looking ahead to leadership positions in the field.

“We’ve seen after the pandemic, hospitals aren’t pushing like they used to for nurses to have a higher level of education,” Perkins said. “There’s been something to, ‘How fast can I get a nursing degree?’ — and that’s understandable, considering where things were.”

But she said studies show that the higher level of education in a nursing staff — “That bachelor’s degree that we provide here” — the better the outcomes are for patients.

An experienced nurse herself who started working at what is now UPMC Cole in Coudersport, Pa., after graduating from Mansfield (Pa.) University, Perkins said the SBU nursing program also strives to prepare students to mentally deal with the rigors of a nursing career.

“We want (graduates) to be less susceptible to burnout,” she said. “The goal is not just to become a nurse but to become a nurse with a lifelong career. We can’t have them working for a couple of years and then saying, ‘I can’t be a nurse.’ We need to prepare them to have all the tools that they need to succeed.”

Rachael Huff, graduating this spring with a BS in nursing, said the faculty honed her class’s nursing skills but also nurtured their personal development.

“Rooted in Franciscan values, our classes became more than lessons. They became reflections of compassion, empathy and service,” she said. “This experience not only shaped my perspective on rural healthcare needs but also instilled in me a profound commitment to answering them with the same spirit of care and dedication that defined my time at St. Bonaventure.

“Through rigorous coursework and hands-on experiences, I developed the critical thinking abilities and leadership qualities necessary to navigate the complexities of modern healthcare,” Huff added.

PERKINS SAID SHE fosters the “Dr. Suess approach to clinicals in the sense that a patient is a patient, no matter where they are.” With that, the programs focus on getting students time in outpatient units, from settings like Olean Medical Group and the Remote Area Medical Clinics to immersion trips in which students are exposed to Level 1 trauma centers and ICUs. Students get time in obstetrics and psychiatry units as well.

The well-rounded scope of experiences is meant to prepare students for anything, even if it might be outside an intended or existing specialty. In the case of nurses working in hospitals and ERs that serve rural areas — like Olean General Hospital, UPMC Cole or Bradford Regional Medical Center — Perkins said that while trauma cases are sent to facilities in Buffalo, Rochester and elsewhere, a local nurse “is still going to see some trauma” and will be part of a team that stabilizes a patient. Their experience through SBU can help prepare them for it, she said.

“Rural America is what is interesting for a nurse,” she said. “You have to have knowledge of all the specialties.”

With a husband who also has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing — Kayle Perkins works at UPMC Cole — Connie Perkins said central to her goals for the SBU program will always be to continue feeding nurses into the region’s healthcare system, the kind of setting where they are needed most.

“We are ‘lifers’ in the area and we don’t ever plan to leave,” she said of herself and her husband, parents of a young daughter, Rubi. “The perspective of rural medicine is what I brought to these programs. We need more nurses, and that’s what we’ll be doing, making more nurses — but also making more highly educated nurses.”