Palomar College to upgrade facilities

By: NOELLE IBRAHIM - Staff Writer | Thursday, July 5, 2007 9:50 PM PDT ∞

SAN MARCOS ---- Palomar College is forging ahead with plans to improve facilities to make way for expanded nursing and dental assisting programs, a move that, officials say, will eventually help alleviate a countywide nursing shortage.

Extensive renovations to a one-story building in the center of the 200-acre main campus known as the "S" building are part of the first wave of projects to be funded by Proposition M, a $694 million bond approved by voters in November.

"It's exciting," said Kelley Hudson-MacIsaac, the college's manager of facilities planning. "We've got lots to keep us busy."

The "S" building will house classrooms, laboratories and faculty offices, said Hudson-MacIsaac. Built in 1956, the building will become vacant when programs in physics, engineering and chemistry move into a new Natural Sciences Building this fall.

The intent of the project is to provide much needed space and state-of-the-art facilities for Palomar's growing number of nursing and dental assisting students. Students currently take nursing classes in a group of 25-year-old temporary buildings called "Redwood City."

The remodeled "S" building will include two nursing lecture/skills laboratories equipped with 12 beds where students can practice bedside care. Also, separate nursing and dental assisting lecture halls will accommodate 20 to 40 students, Hudson-MacIsaac said.

"What we're trying to do is replicate what they have in modern hospitals," she said.

Other design features include a dental operating room complete with six state-of-the art operating chairs, two darkrooms and a sterilization area, as well as increased storage space and 17 offices for faculty.

"It's an important thing for faculty to be able work together and make sure their curriculum is coordinated," said Candice Francis, interim dean of mathematics, natural and health sciences. "That'll really enhance their programs. We have the premier nursing program in the county, so we'd like to have the facilities that match the quality of nursing students we turn out."

Architectural plans will be submitted to the California Department of State Architect for approval by Sept. 1 and will take roughly eight weeks to review, said Hudson-MacIsaac.

"The architect (Carrier Johnson) is writing the construction document as we speak," she said.

Construction is slated begin in January and will cost $3.4 million, Hudson-MacIsaac said. The project is expected to be completed by September of next year, she added.

Palomar is aiming to reduce a severe shortage of nurses in North County, which has one of the worst ratios of nurses to residents in the nation, according to a 2006 study by the California Hospitals Association.

There are 356 nurses per 100,000 residents between Highway 56 and the county line, which is less than half the national ratio of 787 nurses per 100,000 residents. The ratio in California is 622 nurses per 100,000 residents, which ranks 49th out of 50 states.

The college was able to expand its nursing program by 20 students this spring, thanks to a $395,000 state grant it received last year, allowing the number of students admitted to the program each year to expand from 72 to 92, said Francis.

The grant was intended to cover the cost of extra faculty and equipment required for the expansion, while helping the college shrink its nearly 400-person waiting list.

"It's such a high-demand program that I think (new facilities are) long overdue," said Hudson-MacIsaac.

Contact staff writer Noelle Ibrahim at (760) 761-4404 or nibrahim@nctimes.com.