Practical Nursing
Available as a two-year, five-semester program
- Credential
Two-year Ontario College Diploma
- Start Date
September entry (traditional academic year) and January entry (NEW 2022: Five continuous semesters)
- Location
Belleville campus
Find your career
- Provide care to clients and their caregivers in hospital settings, including medical-surgical, maternal child, mental health and emergency departments.
- Community nursing settings such as: doctors’ offices, nurse practitioner clinics, home-care nursing agencies, ambulatory clinics and public health units.
- Promote community health and disease prevention.
- Work in leadership positions in retirement homes and long-term care facilities.
- Earn average starting salaries of $45,000 to $49,999.*
- Loyalist grads have historically scored above the provincial and national averages in all categories of the Canadian Practical Nurse Registration Exam (CPNRE).
- Loyalist received a Category 1, five-year program approval from the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) in March 2014 — the highest attainable rating.
*Source: Employment Profile Provincial Report, Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
Our grads get great jobs
- Registered Practical Nurse, Quinte Healthcare Corporation
- Registered Practical Nurse, Hastings Manor Long Term Care Facility
- Registered Practical Nurse, Lennox and Addington County General Hospital
- Registered Practical Nurse, Kingston General Hospital
- Registered Practical Nurse, Victorian Order of Nurses
Is it for you?
A career as an RPN is both challenging and rewarding. People of all ages can thrive in this program. They must be:
- Passionate about helping others
- Caring and compassionate
- Inquisitive and eager to learn
- Driven to make a difference in people’s quality of care
Experiential learning
Learn to assess clients’ health throughout the lifespan, and to plan, implement and evaluate appropriate nursing care, in the classroom and beyond:
- Small clinical and lab groups with intensive personal instruction.
- Participation in virtual simulation with realistic, interactive practice scenarios in our cutting-edge Human Simulation Lab.
- Develop skills during a community based blood pressure clinic.
- Engage with dynamic guest speakers from the health care field.
- Participate in clinical placements taught by expert nursing professors in hospitals and long-term care facilities.
- Gain a variety of clinical nursing skills in: medicine, surgery, paediatrics/obstetrics, continuing complex care and mental health.
- Work one-on-one with a Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) during an intensive eight-week clinical placement.
Please read the College of Nurses of Ontario Program Approval Review Summary for Loyalist College's Practical Nursing program here.
Outstanding faculty make the difference
- Faculty members are experienced registered nurses with varied backgrounds in mental health, maternal childcare, palliative care, acute medicine, long-term care and community nursing.
- Clinical professors continue to work in their field, bringing current knowledge and skills to their students.
- Respected faculty continually integrate best practices in nursing education and have presented provincially, nationally and internationally at practical nurse educator and simulation conferences.
- Loyalist's Practical Nursing program has been reviewed and approved by the College of Nurses of Ontario Council and meets all mandatory requirements. Graduates are eligible to register with CNO.