Graduate and undergraduate nursing students at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University will soon have the opportunity for hands-on clinical work as part of a new community outpost set to open on St. Cloud’s southeast side next spring.
Construction is scheduled to begin in October on the project, which will be housed in the Salem Lutheran Church building.
The facility will include space for the St. Cloud police and fire departments, emergency health services and a free medical clinic, which will be run as a partnership between the Greater St Cloud Public Safety Foundation, the CSB nursing department and various other community counterparts.
The clinic will be staffed by department faculty members and graduate students. Undergraduate students will also help at the facility, engaging in preventative and educational health activities.
“Students will benefit from a comprehensive, real-world learning environment that encourages them to take active roles in community health initiatives,” said Jennifer Peterson, chair of the graduate nursing program at CSB. “These experiences will prepare them to lead in their future careers by cultivating their abilities to address community-specific health issues, promote social justice and advocate for equitable healthcare access.”
Salem Lutheran Church offered use of the space for the project, which is being coordinated by the Greater St. Cloud Public Safety Foundation. The organization also helped oversee the community partnership that led to the opening of the St. Cloud Rotary Richard C. Wilson Community OutPost on St. Cloud’s south side.
“(CSB Vice President of Institutional Advancement) Heather Pieper-Olson is very connected in the community and she got us in contact with the Greater St. Cloud Public Safety Foundation to discuss playing a role,” Peterson said. “It will be a free clinic. The graduate and undergraduate nursing faculty and students will be volunteering their time. CentraCare and other health care organizations in the community are supporting this initiative with assisting in the initial clinic set up and donation of supplies. .
“We’re starting with one afternoon a week for our family nurse practitioner and graduate students and 1-2 afternoons a week for our undergraduate nursing students, and we’ll grow from there. We’ll see how the community responds to having this resource, and if the need is there, hopefully we’ll be able to expand in the future.”
Peterson said the hope is to eventually get other departments on campus involved in the project as well.
“What that might look like is still unclear, but there could be opportunities for students to get involved in social work, nutrition … things like that,” Peterson said.
Graduate students in the department have already played a key role in getting the endeavor off the ground.
Becky Wensmann, who is now in her third year in the DNP-FNP program, worked with Peterson on a community assessment in the summer of 2023 to determine what the initial needs of the southeast side community were.
“Being able to serve the community and learn at the same time is a huge opportunity,” Wensmann said. “It’s a chance to create a safe place for people to come and provides us the ability to promote preventative medicine to those who may not have access otherwise.
“This is really a win-win for the community and those in the East St. Cloud Area and it’s also a chance for us to get real-time experience.”