It has been more than a year since I last posted on my blog. I missed writing.
For the year that was, well madami na ang nangyari.
It will take me forever to recall and write everything in one sitting. So for the mean time, let me just give you a quick one on the issue that disturbs me the most.
ADDITIONAL year / units for Pinoy BSN! Okay… What were they thinking??? Seriously. Have they gone totally blind on the real issue here? No matter how many more years or units they (educators) decide to add to the present 4-year BSN curriculum, that will definitely NOT translate to higher passing rate nor MORE EFFICIENT graduate nurses. The problem is not always the student. It is what the teacher offers to teach. It’s how the educators teach.
Let me give you a needle-hole view of the current nursing education. Before I became a student-nurse, I was expecting to learn the admirable skills of the RNs in the hospital, specially the ones I see on TV! Could not help but laugh with that thought, but hey, TV is a very influential gadget. So anyway, to my dismay, I learned more and more by the textbook and scripted RDs (Return Demonstration) most of the skills that I later on realized a caregiver and nurse aid could do better. So what happened to the other skills that a real RN performs on a real job? Guess what? They are not taught nor pushed to be learned while in school. We are told we will only learn them by ourselves when we pass the board exam and get a job in the hospital! So now, how do we perform the nurses job if they are not taught to us while in school??? How do we learn by heart the principles if we do not apply them in actual patient over and over? How do we perfect a skill for employment when the present curriculum prohibits that? Take for example the simplest yet most controversial issue of performing the IV Therapy. Student-nurses are not allowed to perform IV insertion. Well, there are few lucky ones who happen to have been under really cool and generous C.I.s (Clinical Instructor) who would allow to supervise his/her student to try actual IV insertion on the patient. But that’s very rare – I’d say not more than 15% of the total population have met those kind of C.Is. During my entire nursing education, I came across only 2 C.Is that allowed me to insert IV. More than 90% of my classmates had never tried it at all. Imagine that. Such a waste of valuable time.
What I am trying to say here is that, student – nurses are hungry for information that will be useful and valuable when they finally bid goodbye to their alma mater. The additional year and units, not to mention the expenses and fees paid to the school and the instructors/ professors, without actual skills (other than VS Monitoring and other monitoring) application will only be a burden; it will be really useless.
It is not a surprise anymore why Philippine educated nurses got lower passing rate versus the China educated ones. That’s despite all the textbooks and information widely available in ENGLISH language… Despite the added units.
If the government and the educators really wanted to produce good nurses, they should give it their best shot too. Inculcate the values & skills of a real nurse during the nursing-student years. Huwag nyo ipagdamot ang karapatan namin na matutunan ang magiging trabaho namin, dahil kung maging outstanding nurses kame, sa inyo din naman ang credit. Hindi ba’t mas maganda na umalis kame sa inyo (college/university) na bitbit ang mga natutunan namin sa inyo. Hindi ba’t karangalan ng skwelahan din naman at ng bansa ang karga ng nurses kung siya ay mapuri ng employer nya?
Hindi lang VS (Vital Signs) monitoring ang dapat alam ng nurses pag graduate. Nakakhiya na pag mag a-apply ng work tapos mas magaling pa ang mga nurse aid and caregiver sa mga skills na na R.D. ng nurse nung student pa lang. Nakakahiya para sa nurse, sa mga professor/ instructor nya, pati na rin sa school na pinanggalingan nya na yun lang ang alam nya gawin.
My only wish is that the government and the educators would do an overhaul of the nursing education system.
And please Please, activate all your senses when you reflect.
Not until there’s an actual fire can a fireman put off a fire; Not until a fireman put off many fire can he be a really good fire-fighter. Just my 20-cents. *wink*
