Nurse opens college in Mount Prospect to train next generation of health care workers
If you’re interested in entering the health care field, RN Marie Fenelon can point you in the right direction.
The Round Lake resident works as a hospice clinical manager at a facility in Addison that is part of the Alden network. She recently opened Fenelon College of Healthcare Careers at 800 W. Central Road, Suite 106N, Mount Prospect.
In March, the college will begin offering classes for budding certified nursing assistants and phlebotomists.
Fenelon explained that the program is not for aspiring registered nurses. It is for allied health care workers.
“The difference is you have the doctor, you have the registered nurse, and then you have people that work under those people to support the team,” she said.
These include nurses aides and phlebotomists, the people who draw blood.
The facility has been approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Illinois Department of Public Health.
The course catalog includes an electrocardiogram program, a CPR program, a phlebotomy program, a patient care technician program and a basic nursing assistant program.
Each program has its own time frame, she said. They range from eight weeks to 16 weeks.
In the nursing assistant program, classes focus on the health care setting and such topics as infection control, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, otherwise known as HIPAA, and federal regulations for long-term care settings.
Regulations differ in hospital and skilled nursing settings, as well as home health care and hospice, she said.
Students are required to undergo a full background check. Other requirements include a high school diploma or GED, although she said those who are close to graduating high school could be admitted.
“My goal is to start my students on the right path for success, not just for here, but long term,” she said.
The college’s interior is simple and unassuming. The most striking feature are the beds containing “patients” — actually nursing mannequins — in the lab room. This is where students learn skills they can apply in situations requiring IVs, catheters and colostomy bags.
She also has areas where students can become familiar with different types of equipment, such as a centrifuge used in blood work.
The college has an agreement with the Alden Estates of Barrington for students to experience hands-on training. For the basic nursing assistant program, students will have to undergo at least 16 hours in lab practice before they go to a nursing facility and work with actual patients.
The value of Alden Estates of Barrington is the facility has patients with different types of needs, including patients on ventilators and those receiving memory care.
Fenelon said she is licensed to have at least 15 students at a time.
She said COVID brought to light such weaknesses in the health care system as lack of staffing and support for health care workers.
“I wanted to do my part,” she said. “If people are interested in health care, I want to give them what health care should look like. Hopefully, one day, students come up to me and say, ‘I'm a nurse practitioner. I came to your program.’”