Implementing a Model of Excellence for Interprofessional Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Clinical Education, led by the Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN) Associate Professor Irene Sarasua, was one of five projects awarded a Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) Education Impact Award, a new prize introduced in 2026 by the Office of the Vice-Dean, Education and Community Engagement, to recognize exceptional contributions to education across the Faculty.
The project brought together faculty, researchers, nurse practitioners and health managers working at ISoN, the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’île-de-Montréal, and the CIUSSS de Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, to address the urgent need for a structured, evidence-based approach to improving primary care nurse practitioner (PCNP) clinical education.
“As the profession evolved and the number of PCNP students grew, it became increasingly evident that we needed to work together to strengthen our capacity to effectively support PCNP learners in clinical settings while expanding access to high-quality internships,” explains Prof. Sarasua.
“I have witnessed firsthand the rapidly evolving landscape of PCNP education,” notes Annie Chevrier, RN, ISoN Assistant Professor and Associate Director, Graduate Programs, Innovation & Accreditation. “The combination of a relatively new professional role in Quebec and a growing number of NP students has created significant pressure on clinical placement capacity, quality, and consistency. These challenges are widely recognized across the province, yet until now, few evidence-based, scalable solutions had been developed or implemented. This project directly addresses that gap [by undertaking] a rigorous, collaborative, and highly structured quality-improvement initiative to implement and evaluate key components of the model across two CIUSSS networks and the ISoN NP program.”
The team had previously developed its model of excellence as part of the Healthcare Excellence Canada EXTRA Program; in 2023, they secured a two-year grant from the McGill-Ingram School of Nursing Collaborative to implement, evaluate and refine the model.
During the first phase of the project, four priority areas were identified, with working groups established for each: (1) student internship trajectory co-design; (2) NP supervisor training; (3) NP supervisor support; (4) and patient engagement in clinical education. After two years of diligent efforts by everyone on the team, the working groups delivered several high impact achievements, including the development of a six-module online training program for supervisors; the creation of a supportive community of practice; the introduction of a standardized pre-internship supervisor checklist; and the implementation of a multilingual patient-feedback questionnaire, available in 11 languages, allowing patients to be engaged in providing feedback to PCNP students. Thus far, 100% of patient respondents who filled out the questionnaire reported that they valued the opportunity to provide formal feedback to NP students. Supervisors provided equally strong feedback, with all of the supervisors who participated in the community of practice agreeing that these meetings had been helpful.
Speaking on behalf of the team, Marie-Claude Goyer, Director of the School’s PCNP Concentration, notes that the strength of this innovative project lies in the depth and breadth of the partnership between the ISoN’s academic program and the clinical settings. “By engaging supervisors, clinicians, managers, faculty members, students, and patients, we were able to strengthen the quality and capacity of PCNP clinical education across the McGill network, establishing a sustainable foundation for the continued growth of the NP workforce.”
Congratulations to the team on this important achievement and well-deserved recognition: Irene Sarasua, Jacqueline Bocking, Nadia Doiron, Rosanna Zappavigna, Dalila Benhaberou-Brun, Emmanuelle Catanèse, Michèle Desmarais, Diana Dima, Marie-Andrée Gaudreau, Maggie Ghaleb, Michel Godin, Marie-Claude Goyer, Beverley-Tracey John, Elise Lagarde, Jérôme Ouellet, Patricia Robitaille, Serena Slater, Kelley Kilpatrick.
Stay tuned for more profiles of the other four winning projects in upcoming editions of Health e-News.
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