New LPNs head out to heal the world

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This article was published 07/09/2019 (2291 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Juggling the responsibilities of wife and mother with her studies, Carrie Denbow can now call herself a licensed practical nurse.

Denbow, 39, was joined by 30 other students who graduated Friday from Assiniboine Community College’s two-year Practical Nursing diploma program.

“I love health care to begin with,” said Denbow, who spent 12 years as a health-care aide at a long-term care facility in Reston, where she and her family live.

“Just working as a health-care aide for so many years, advancing to my LPN was something I had always thought about, but it just never seemed to work financially or time-wise.”

When ACC offered an LPN program in 2017 in Melita, a community much closer to home, Denbow applied to go there.

“That’s what pushed me,” Denbow said in an interview Thursday. “I figured whatever, we’ll figure out finances later and I would just do it.”

Unfortunately, she said, she was unable to get into the program because she was lacking her high school science and her math wasn’t good enough.

“I had to upgrade, so I missed out on the Melita program.”

Denbow did her courses and decided to go ahead and apply to the ACC program.

That had its own challenges.

The drive in from Reston, southwest of Brandon, takes a good hour and 20 minutes each way, she said.

And then there was winter.

“I lucked out,” Denbow said. “The two years (she was in the program) there was only a few days that there was a storm.”

When it got too bad, she simply stayed home.

“I couldn’t get out of my yard, never mind to get to the highway,” she said.

Denbow and her partner Calvin Mispelon have two girls, Cloe, 11 and Erica, 9.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do this without family support,” she said.

Being a mature student in a program full of young students wasn’t easy, Denbow admitted.

“I found it very difficult, to be honest,” she said. “I found that I didn’t fit in. However, I made the best of it.”

(It should be noted here that during the ceremony on Friday, Denbow received among the loudest cheers from her fellow graduates as her name was called to receive her diploma.)

Denbow is now on the hunt for work as a LPN, hopefully back at the long-term care facility in Reston.

“That’s what I like,” she said. “That’s my passion is long-term care.”

On Friday, Denbow and the other graduates in their sharp, white uniforms were escorted by a bagpiper through the gymnasium packed with families and well-wishers.

Bringing greetings on behalf of the college, president Mark Frison reminded the graduates they are about to start their careers in the midst of a provincial election where health care is top-of-mind among many.

“I can only imagine starting your careers at this time, during the middle of two election seasons where health care is identified as the No. 1 issue and all parties, I think, are sort of guilty of this and politicizing the sector.”

When you ask people in polling survey about what they think about health care the responses are mixed, Frison said.

“But when you ask them ‘How was your last experience with the system?’ consistently the answers are ‘excellent.’”

He said the college is hoping for the graduates to continue to be part of a proud tradition of providing excellent care to people who need it, “and that they will continue to think of the health-care system and their experience as excellent.

“And so I hope you’re able to do that and not feel trepidations about what you read in the media about the system. I think you’ll be the example that people will look toward.”

Following speeches from valedictorians Sabrina Dueck and Morgan Wiebe, the graduates received their diplomas from Frison and hugs from a line of well-wishers.

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