LOCH SHELDRAKE -- SUNY Sullivan and Catskill Regional Medical Center (CRMC) recently signed an agreement that would strengthen the education that nurses receive in Sullivan County. According to both the college and the hospital, “The consortium will ensure that nursing graduates possess the knowledge and abilities consistent with the needs of Sullivan County Employees.”

The agreement was signed outside of The Orr Nursing Lab, located in SUNY Sullivan's Joan and Jesse Farrow Hall by SUNY Sullivan President Jay Quaintance and CRMC's CEO Jonathan Schiller.

SUNY Sullivan Nursing Program Director and CRMC Nursing Administrator Laura Northrup noted that the partnership between SUNY Sullivan and CRMC is a great way for students to get experience in a clinical setting, but also allows them to understand how a community hospital functions, improving their growth as nurses. “Professionalism is part of our mission here in this [line of] work,” she said.

“We're losing students to other programs, so we wanted to be able to keep students here,” SUNY Sullivan Vice President of Academic Student Affairs Dr. Keith Pomakoy said. “So every way you look these changes are very exciting.”

SUNY Sullivan and CRMC administrators look forward to collaborating in order to better future nursing students at the institution. Students in the program will now have more hands on experience and will gain stronger abilities in the nursing field, and administrators hope that this will also increase the number of registered nurses in the county.

“I do think that it's reasonable to suggest that the overall economic, social, and physical health of a community can really be judged by the strength and education of healthcare systems,” Schiller stated. He adds that, “This is an unstoppable force for a growing educational opportunity in our community...”