Prince Edward Island School of Nursing

The training of nurses in Prince Edward Island began in 1891 when a pioneering nursing supervisor began to train women to care for the sick in the PEI Hospital. Over the next 100 years there were several schools of nursing all based on an apprentice type training program. By the 1960s there was a move, spearheaded by a study of the three schools of nursing carried out by the Association of Nurses of PEI, to create a central school of nursing for the Island. A blueprint was prepared by the Hospital Services Commission and a Founding Committee met between May and July of 1968. The new school, gazetted in December 1966, was to be managed by a seven person Board of Directors and the program was to consist of two years of basic curriculum followed by a third year of clinical experience in Island hospitals. Sister Mary Eileen McKinnon was appointed Director. The first class began their studies in September 1969 and the school maintained an excellent reputation throughout the next two decades. By the late 1980s a long-promoted vision of a university degree in nursing science as the entrance requirement to nursing practice finally came to fruition. Following several studies recommending the desirability and feasibility of such a course, a School of Nursing faculty was established at the University of Prince Edward Island with a four year baccalaureate degree. A Transition Committee was formed and the decision taken that the final class would graduate from the P.E.I. School of Nursing in 1994 and the diploma program would cease.