Class of 2025: Mother of 12 takes the rural community route to Bachelor of Nursing

From left: Janice Stewart, Alberta Health Services chief zone officer, with Wainwright graduates Miranda Corbel, Kayleigh Bartley, Ethan Weeks, Nicole Aventurado, Tanya Worobo-Schenk, Gaeleen Funk, and assistant dean Heather Bensler.

There are several reasons Gaeleen Funk wanted to become a nurse. As a mother of 12, she had been a caregiver for decades, but one transformational moment also stands out.

As a teenager, Funk’s grandfather was diagnosed with bone cancer, at the age of 90, and her uncle looked after him. Due to pain caused by his cancer, her grandfather had not been able to sleep in his own bed. One night, he requested to sleep upstairs in his bed, so her uncle wrapped him in a blanket and carried him up the stairs and laid him in his bed. 

Her grandfather passed away later that evening.

“It was so impactful how much care my uncle gave to my grandpa and seeing the difference it made in addressing a dying person’s concerns and caring for them the way they wanted to be cared for was beautiful,” Funk says. “And I thought, ‘This is something I could do for people.’”

Living in the small community of Wainwright and raising a large family, however, made it impossible for her to pursue a nursing degree in a distant urban centre such as Calgary. 

How Gaeleen Funk discovered the program

While taking her health-care aide certificate in Wainwright, Funk came across a poster advertising the new Rural Community Route for a Bachelor of Nursing degree, being offered by the University of Calgary. 

“People were talking about it because it’s a small community and everybody talks,” Funk says. “They were talking about it in coffee shops, it was great.”

• Read more profiles of amazing Class of 2025 graduates 

The program allows those interested in a career in nursing to continue living in their own community while they study and work.

“It was an absolute rural advantage,” says Funk.

Funk and her classmates were able to take their theory classes over Zoom, and then do their labs and practicums in the local hospital and area health centres.

Rural nursing students gain broad experience

“There was no one who really needed to leave home,” she says. “And I had the ability to study while raising a family.”

The program allows students to learn board, general nursing skills, differing from the more specialized nursing that students in urban settings learn.

“Rural nursing is not the same as urban,” explains Heather Bensler, assistant dean of academic partnerships and associate professor (teaching) in the Faculty of Nursing. “You may have to see a patient who is delivering a baby, a patient who is palliative, and a patient presenting with a heart attack all in the same shift.”

Funk confirms this is exactly how rural nursing works.

“Rural nurses are known for adaptability and the need for a wide range of skills to undertake whatever walks through the door,” she says.

Throughout the program, students obtained experienced across a range of situations, including: 

• operating rooms
• emergency department
• acute care
• long-term care
• cardiac clinic
• labour and delivery

“To have students who know the community, who are from the community and who plan to continue practicing there is huge,” says Bensler. “We’re helping to address the health care worker shortage in these rural communities.”

This is true for Funk, as she has been hired in Wainwright as an acute care nurse with a focus on obstetrics. Three of her other classmates have also been hired to continue practicing in Wainwright.

Program expands to more Alberta communities

The rural nursing program has been highly successful with several cohots underway: 

• Wainwright
• Cold Lake
• St. Paul
• Drayton Valley,  
• the Siksika Nation 

Future sites will include Drumheller, Claresholm, Bonnyville and the Tsuut’ina Nation.

“I’m so happy to hear the program is expanding,” says Funk.

She says she would absolutely recommend the program to anyone considering pursuing nursing in a rural setting.

“I think it’ll be a great way to retain more rural nurses by training people in the places where they live,” says Funk. “People who are in rural areas want to live there, so there’s nothing better than giving them educational opportunities at home.”