Half of SUNY Canton nursing grads to work at local hospitals

CANTON, New York (WWNY) - Half the nursing students set to graduate from SUNY Canton this month have already landed jobs around the north country.

The lack of nurses across the region has been a consistent problem, but according to SUNY Canton, half of the 80 nursing students of the class of 2023 have already secured positions at hospitals in St. Lawrence, Lewis and Jefferson counties.

“For their clinical rotations go through the different specialty areas. So they start out in the nursing home and then they go into the hospital setting. They do med-serv (medical service) rotations, OB, psych, and then they get into critical care rotations before they graduate,” said Karli French, SUNY Canton nursing instructor.

To help prepare nurses for the real world, SUNY Canton has simulation rooms with manikins to help prepare students for medical situations they might experience in the field.

Massena native Megan Eddy says that she’s going to be working at Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in Ogdensburg as part of the medical-surgical unit, and credits her training at SUNY Canton.

“I think it’s just really important that we have this lab here because it really helps coming from a 2-hour lecture and learning and seeing everything written out, but then being able to come in and apply it to our manikins, to each other it’s just really great to be able to connect it in that way,” she said.

The nursing students will graduate on May 13.

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