KLC Newsletter March 2014

KINGSTON
RICHMOND HILL
SMITHS FALLS
WHITBY
NEWSLETTER DATE MARCH 15, 2015
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1
Special points
of interest:
Director’s Message
When I look at the calendar,
when I change my clock,
when I see kids off for
March Break, and when I see
our students nearing the end
of classes and getting ready
for Work Placements, I
know Spring must be just
around the corner but then I
look at our parking lot and
see 14 feet high snow banks
and I wonder when it will
actually disappear. I was
joking with staff that we
should start a wager – a fifty/
fifty draw on when the last
bit of snow melts away from
the back parking lot. I guess
the weather helps us stay
focused on indoor activity
which is what you should be
concentrating on anyway.
We have been ready for the
weeks to come, lining up
placement opportunities and
planning for next year. In a
blink, it will be upon us and
we will wonder where the
time went. That’s the beauty
of being busy; time seems to
just fly by.
We have been getting some
good feedback from both
students and employers on
recent classes and placements. The College seems to
be faring well in the community. Many of the Personal Support Worker students out on placement were
being interviewed for permanent positions before
they actually finished their
placements. Also, great
news for the Education Assistant students, Limestone
District School Board officially recognizes the KLC
College Diploma and welcomes our graduates to apply for EA positions within
their Board schools. Thanks
to the efforts of the program
coordinator, Rick Skinner,
and many others over the
years we finally were able to
overcome all the hurdles to
become recognized. This
should bode well for our
upcoming graduates that are
considering Limestone as a
possible employer.
As you get near the finish
line I encourage you not to
get discouraged. This is usually when the pressure and
stress mounts a bit. But you
have made it this far, you
are on the home stretch. Just
stay focused and you will
successfully cross that finished line before you know
it!! Best of luck.
Pharmacy
Technician Program
‘What’s On’ - a look
at four KLC
programs
Proctoring Service
Inside this issue:
Director’s Message 1
2
Pharmacy
Technician
Coordinator -Peter
Chui
Pharmacy
Technician
Instructors
3
Farewell to our
Pharmacy
Technician
Students
4
What’s On catching up with
OBA, IODA and
Web
5
Proctoring Service
6
A Graduate’s
Story
7
OSAP: some facts 8
Letter from a
Graduate
8
Next Grad Photos 8
Page 2
Peter Chiu: Coordinator of the Pharmacy Technician Program
Peter Chui comes to KLC College in the Pharmacy Technician program
with a long history in the field of Pharmacy. After graduating from
Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Science in Life Science with Distinction, he went on to attend University of Toronto. There he graduated
with his second degree, a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy with Honours.
While attending university he received many honours including Queen’s
University Dean’s Honour list, Queen Elizabeth II Aiming for the Top
Scholarship and the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation Award.
But that didn’t keep Peter busy enough. While he was studying and
attending class, he acted as a tutor/mentor to high school students in KingPeter Chui, Pharmacist and Coordinator
ston and Toronto. In the Hy-School Projects and Endeavors (HYPE) at
of the Pharmacy Technician Program at
KLC College
Queen’s, Peter not only helped build self-confidence in teenagers but
he helped with their transition from Secondary school to a post-secondary education. For the University of Toronto, Peter was a part of the Saturday Program providing secondary school students with study strategies and
course work.
On top of that, while at the University of Toronto, he co-founded the Pharmacy Health Column in the Faculty
of Pharmacy’s official student newsletter called the Monograph. He organized a fledgling faculty-wide instructional class for pilates and self-defense and coordinated weekly athletic events for the student body to encourage healthy living. As co-director of the Pharmacy Mentorship program he actively expanded the network of
pharmacists acting as mentors from 6 to over 50.
Peter is very active in professional endeavours, attending a variety of conferences such as the Educational
Pharmacist Psoriasis Conference, the Educational Seminar on Managing Diabetes with Diet, and UTIHP Conference on International Health and Human Rights. He has acted as an Assessor for both the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada OSCE Part II Examination and for the University of Toronto Leslie Dan Faculty of
Pharmacy Admissions Interviews.
He has been a member of both
the Pharmacy Men’s and COED
Basketball and Volleyball teams.
He placed 3rd in the CAPSI
Compounding Competition in
Pharmacy and second in the Faculty of Pharmacy Student External Affairs Writing Competition.
Currently, Peter serves as Pharmacist for Metro Ontario Pharmacies in Shopper’s Drug Mart
and teaches Pharmacy Calculations and Communications in
KLC College’s Pharmacy
Technician Program.
Pharmacy class and Peter together in the lab at KLC College
Page 3
Pharmacy Instructors
Susan Lewis RPhT Instructor -
Priti Luhadia RPh, BscPharm
Institutional Pharmacy Practices
Instructor - Pharmacology
Peter Chiu RPh, CGP, BscPharm, BSc
Coordinator/Instructor - Pharmacy
Calculations and Communication
Carol Peterson RPhT
Instructor - Aseptic Technique, Law and
Compounding
Maria Schell RPh, BscPharm, BScH
Instructor - Community Pharmacy
Practices
Page 4
Time for Pharmacy Placement
From left to right: Keely Badour, Sarah Lacourt, Janet Bodendistel and Kyle MacDonald are some of the
Pharmacy Technicians who will be going on placement soon.
We will have to say good-bye to our Pharmacy Technician students soon. In a few weeks they
will be going on their placements. For four weeks, some of them will be working in a Community Pharmacy while some of them will be in a Hospital setting. Then they switch.
A variety of emotions is running through the class. Curiosity about where the placement will
be and how they will fare is the main feeling. This curiosity is coupled with anxiousness, nervousness, excitement and trepidation. But most of them feel positive and excited.
There is a lot to look forward to in these next eight weeks. For some it is the fact that they will
not have any homework; for others it is a chance to continue their education with other Pharmacists in a work environment.
When asked which placement they might enjoy the most, the answer was clear - community
placement. Everyone of us has been in a pharmacy at some point in our life, albeit on the public side of the counter. Very, very few of us have had an opportunity to visit a hospital pharmacy and the number dwindles to even fewer who have been inside a hospital pharmacy.
We wish you all luck. This is where theory meets practice.
What’s on?
Page 5
Office and Business
Administration
Sherri Hellard, who has just graduated from the Medical Administration
program, was offered a job at the Lennox and Addington County General
Hospital right after her placement there. Congratulations, Sherri.
Web Design and Development
Veronica Robidoux: Coordinator of the
Office and Business Administration
Program
At this point in the Web design and development course, we revisit past projects to
add more dynamic content and interactivity with the use of Jquery and Javascript.
Marc Rogall: Coordinator of Web Design
and Development Program
Physiotherapy Occupational Therapy Assistant
The PT/OTA September start has been busy planning for the future! With the first semester and first 50 hours of placement under their belts, they have been planning for their final
placements and researching where they would like to work. It has been a busy few months
of learning modalities, field trips, guest speakers, and extra workshops in areas including
equine therapy, lived experience of disability, wheelchair and walker prescription, and inter-professional engagement with the Queen’s University Occupational Therapy program.
The PT/OTA January start has had an exciting and VERY busy introduction to rehabilitation therapy! They have accompanied the “senior” group of students on several
field trips in order to get a head start on building their professional portfolios, and Danielle Naumann: Coordinator of the
Physiotherapy/Occupational Therapy
are looking forward to a field trip to the Hotel Dieu Audiology lab.
Program
Intra-Oral Dental Assisting
IODA students having fun exposing radiographs and taking
dental impressions!
Kim and Katelyn
Kayla
Cindy Coulter: Coordinator
of the Intra-oral Dental
Assisting Program
Lindsay
Meghan and Megan
Kathryn
Page 6
KLC College Proctoring Service
Have you seen this sign on the door of the Resource Room? If you were to go closer and look in the window,
you will see at least two people sitting at the desks. One of them is a proctor. The other is a student who is
writing an exam.
The sign on the closed door which
lets you know there is an exam.
We proctor exams for over 90 businesses, colleges and universities, world-wide.
Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Australia, and Great Britain are the most exotic. Three
Saturdays a year, we have the Law School Admission Exam and five times a year,
the Graduate Record exam is being proctored. On those days you will see ten to
twenty-five people from Ottawa, Montreal and Kingston taking the exam. Often, before these exams, you will find signs all over the college pointing out the way to individual rooms or other parts of the facility. In February, we were very busy with exams for Selkirk College as Pharmacy Technicians were becoming qualified to register. Several people have travelled up to 6 hours and spent the night in a hotel in order
to write an exam the next day. Follow this URL to get a full list of exams we do.
http://www.klccollege.ca/w_proctoring_services.aspx? But, we are not finished yet.
We add to this list willingly.
Many of KLC students return to write exams when they want to
further their education. Personal Support Workers, once they have
graduated and are working in the field, return to their studies
endeavouring to graduate as a Registered Nurse. There have been a
few Physiotherapy Assistant and Occupational Therapy Assistant
students return in their quest to become either a Physiotherapist or
an Occupational Therapist.
All of our proctors are
qualified teachers in the
Two of the desks where students write their exams.
Elementary or Secondary
School system. Brooke, Jolene, Madelyn and Gerry are the ones you
will see on a week day here as they sit in on the exams. The beauty
of our services is that we proctor any day of the week, including
weekends, and at any time, including evening. If you know of anyone looking for a proctoring service, or if in the future, you, yourself, are looking, please remember to try us at KLC College.
The three desks are often full of people writing
exams.
Page 7
A Graduate’s Story
There are a lot of happy graduates from the Office and Business Administration Program. Kim McWilliams is one of them. As soon as Kim completed her placement she was hired. You will hear that a lot from former
students who are working in hospitals and offices in Kingston or further
afield. But there is a little twist to Kim’s story.
Kim knew that she wanted to re-train in an Administration Program but
that she also wanted to have a placement component in that training.
Placement is where you solidify everything you have learned but in a real
situation with everything needing attention at once. After visiting a few
colleges, Kim realized that KLC was the college for her. She also liked
the professionalism and friendliness of our Admission Counselor. Everything fit into place including the fact that KLC is close to home.
When Kim was a student, she had her head down and her work done.
Many times, she continued her assignments at home to get them accomplished within the time frame. A forty-two week program sounds like a long time at the beginning of it,
but times flies and procrastination is easy. As a busy wife and mother, Kim certainly didn’t have very
much free time, but she managed to complete her work load on time and then she went out to placement at
the Queen’s Family Health Team. After a very successful placement, her coworkers were sad to see her
go. If they were hiring, she would still be there. But, she made it out and within a few days of completion,
she was offered another job. You won’t have far to go to find Kim. Her new job is at KLC College!
Stop by and say hello on your way through to class. She is at the front desk every Thursday and Friday.
Kim’s professionalism and work ethic are greatly appreciated.
As a side bar, Kim doesn’t like to have her picture taken and if
you happen to hold a camera up to her she will freeze and have a
dead-pan expression. It is very hard to get her to smile for the
camera unless you catch her unawares. That is how this picture
was taken on the right. But her graduation picture at the top left
of this article is another story. The professional photographer
tried all sorts of tricks to get Kim to relax enough to snap a picture but all failed until she put a graduation cap on Kim. The cap
was overly large and as she turned to one side under the direction of the photographer, the hat flew off, Kim laughed and the
photographer snapped the picture!
Kim at her station in the main office
Page 8
O.S.A.P. - Ontario Student Assistance Program
This financial aid program for post-secondary education students if offered by both the Ontario and Canadian governments. This assistance helps pay for books, tuition, mandatory fees, transportation and living costs for those who are eligible.
When you apply for OSAP, you are automatically considered for 30% off Ontario Tuition. There is no
need to apply for this separately. But, here is also a separate application for this Grant for those who do
not wish to apply for OSAP funding.
You and your family are also expected to contribute to your education based on income and other factors.
There is a basic formula they follow: allowed education expenses minus the money you’re expected to
contribute which equals your financial need. But if you follow this link https://osap.gov.on.ca/
AidEstimatorWeb/enterapp/enter.xhtml it will help you get a more definitive estimate.
Letter from a Graduate
Hello,
Hope everyone is doing well! Sorry I haven't kept in touch much, I've been working as an IBI therapist for a
private centre for the past year.
Just wanted to share some exciting news - yesterday I accepted a position as an IBI therapist at Kinark child
and family services!!! They are the largest children's mental health organization in Ontario.
Thanks again to KLC for getting me started on this amazing career!!
Sincerely,
Marina Mascioli
Graduation Photo Day
6
y
a
Call 613-384-6194 to book a time between 1
p.m. and five p.m. to have your photo taken in
a cap and gown.
It is vital that all of our graduates in 2015 (and
2014) have their pictures taken so we can
include them in our yearly composite photos
decorating the school walls.
d
e
W
d
s
ne
M
,
ay
Page 9
Bridging to a National Accredited Personal Support Worker
Diploma*
*approved by the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities
In today’s competitive market, having the proper credentials can be critical to your success. Our Bridging and
Upgrading program is intended for Health Care Aides and Home Support Workers with or without a formal
certificate that have Canadian experience as a Personal Support Worker (PSW). Students may be foreign
trained provided they are working or have worked within the last 3 years in a Personal Support Worker
capacity in Canada.
KLC College
742 Arlington Park Place
Kingston
613-384-6194
mshanks.klc@cogeco.net