Tuesday was International Nurse's Day and the anniversary of the birth date of founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale.
Whanganui UCOL nursing students and education staff celebrated with morning tea and a shared lunch off campus. First-year nursing students were preparing for laboratory work in the afternoon as part of the training for their first clinical placements.
The Whanganui campus has 120 students studying towards the degree and there will be intakes for year one and two students in July.
The International Council of Nurses commemorates the day each year, and the theme for 2015 is Nurses: A Force for Change: Care Effective, Cost Effective.
UCOL academic leader for the nursing education team Carol Stewart says UCOL acknowledged the themes identified by the council.
"We strongly believe that nurses are well positioned to drive efficiency and effectiveness improvements while at the same time increasing quality of care. Our challenge as educators is to prepare our students to be work-ready for both local and a global health-care delivery."
Whanganui Campus tutor Kevin Baker said the theme for this year's commemoration was an excellent one and nursing was a profession good at self regulation. "There is always huge room for improvement and finding ways of using resources more effectively - it is good if nurses enter the profession with the ability to work with those improvements in mind."
Enrolments are open in Palmerston North and Whanganui.