UTAR M. Kandiah Faculty of Medicine and Health
Sciences (MK FMHS) Department of Nursing continued the celebration of their
10th anniversary with a virtual seminar. Themed “Building a
Nursing Workforce for the 21st Century: Educating Nurses for the
Future”, the seminar took place on 15 October 2022 over Zoom, and saw the
participation of 271 participants.
The event kicked off with a speech from the Dean of
MK FMHS Academician Emeritus Professor Dr Cheong Soon Keng, who said,
“Through this virtual seminar, we will be able to listen to the knowledge
and sharing of information by various credible people from the industry in
building a nursing workforce for the 21st century and in
educating nurses for the future. I believe the theme of this seminar is very
relevant to the current situation and it is very clear that nursing
education is about to see its greatest challenge yet, which is the
preparation and growth of future nurses.”
The seminar continued on with a speech titled
“Educating Nurses of the Future: Challenges are Ahead of Us” from the
keynote speaker, MK FMHS clinical professor Prof Dr Hamidah binti Hassan.
She talked about the challenges that the nursing education sector is
currently facing, to which she noted, “Educating nurses has become a lot
harder in this day and age due to several factors. One of it is the changing
of curriculum, where outcome-based education has become the country’s main
focus, causing the 20th century curriculum to be revamped aside
from the content. With the constant changes, students may find it hard to
adapt, especially since they would need to adopt 21st century
skills as well.” She added, “Another challenge, and the biggest of all, is
Covid-19. Ever since the pandemic occurred, millions of students were forced
to leave their clinical stations, making it difficult to perform practical
tasks. Instead, online teaching was fully used, including clinical
simulations. Thus, it has affected the efficiency and efficacy of the
students’ performance after graduation. They would also have difficulties
defining how effective the provision of healthcare is in person compared to
online.”
After Dr Hamidah’s insightful speech and a group
photo session, the seminar saw its first talk given by Hyogo University
Faculty of Nursing professor Dr Ohue Takashi. In this talk titled, ‘The
Online Teaching Learning Approaches: The Pro and Cons in Nursing Education’,
he spoke about combining onsite and online clinical practice. “When it comes
to educating nurses, we could perhaps mix both types of teaching methods.
The students would first go through online pre-clinical practicum, and
depending if training is possible or not, they would then undertake clinical
practice in a hospital or simulation learning respectively. After that, the
students will take an online after-clinical practicum and simulation, with
an online case study review to end it”, said Dr Ohue.
Dr Ohue speaking about the pros and
cons of online teaching
The second talk of the seminar, titled ‘Educating
Future Nurses: Moving Forward and What is New in Nursing Education:
Australian Perspectives’ was presented by the Chief Operations Office at
Institute of Health & Management (IHM) Australia, Mr Simon Schweigert.
Explaining about nursing education, he said, “In order to combat the
challenge of future shortage of nurses and health workforce, education is
key. As such, the syllabus and teaching in universities must adapt to meet
the needs of industry and respond to changes in practice, workplaces and
society. It should also reflect evolving learning habits and preferences,
whilst producing flexible and engaging content that is constantly available.
Finally, it must allow students to forge connections with key industry
players to open pathways directly from Education to Employment.”
Mr Simon explaining the challenges of
the nursing industry
From there, the Dean of the School of Nursing from
Chiang Mai University Professor Dr Wipada Kunaviktikul lead the third talk
titled ‘Building up the New Nursing Topics, the Old Topics still Remain’. In
her talk, she addressed a few issues plaguing the nursing world. “There are
several issues that we need to be concerned about in the current nursing
industry. These include the shortage of demand and supply of the nursing
workforce, the distribution of nurses, their knowledge and skills, quantity
and quality, the work environment, and Covid-19”, said Dr Wipada.
Dr Wipada addressing the issues of
the nursing industry
The principal of Chettinad College of
Nursing-Faculty, Prof Dr Hepsibah S Sharmil, took the lead on the fourth
talk titled, ‘Content, Delivery, and Quality Assurance Facing Challenges of
Future Health and Issues’. She pointed out the roles of nurses in quality
assurance, to which she said, “There are several roles that nurses need to
play when it comes to quality assurance. Firstly, nurses are active
participants of interdisciplinary quality improvement teams, plus they also
contribute to the innovations and improvements of patient care. They also
play a key role in participating in improvement projects, patient safety
initiatives, and in continuing educational programs for the purpose of
professional development. Not to mention nurses must participate in research
works related to quality assurance, continue appraisal and evaluations, and
identify any areas of needed improvements in delivery of care.”
Dr Hepsibah explaining the role of
nurses in quality assurances
The online seminar’s penultimate talk, titled ‘Roles
of Nursing Faculties in Recruitment and Retaining the Attrition Rate of
Nursing Students’ was next, with the Dean of the Faculty of Nursing from
University of Indonesia Dr Agus Setiawan taking the helm. Dr Agus commented
on the various strategies in the recruitment and retention of nursing
students. “In order to attract and maintain nursing students, I would
recommend a number of strategies to be employed. We need to provide adequate
information to the community about nursing and nursing education through
methods such as open houses, school visits, social media, and word-of-mouth.
Not only that, there should be multiple entry ways for students to join
nursing programmes, whilst also advocating stakeholders to strengthen
nursing education. Moreover, other strategies such as assigning academic
advisor and counselling service for the students, working with alumni and
stakeholders for scholarships, providing appropriate facilities for student
learnings and activities, and utilizing teaching strategies that meet
students’ needs can also be used”, said Dr Agus.
Dr Agus delivering his talk
The online seminar came to an end with the last talk
titled “Building a Future Nursing Work Force: Who are Our Future Nurses”,
with Chief Nurse of Woodlands Health Singapore Ms Pua Lay Hoon giving the
talk. She also spoke on attracting and retaining nurses in today’s nursing
world, saying, “There needs to be a shift in the mental model of
recruitment. Instead of focusing on strict evaluation criteria, we should
look at nurturing candidates of different caliber. A positive and conducive
practice environment also needs to be formed so that students will feel
appreciated and motivated in becoming a nurse. Not only that, we need to
ensure that these nurses have a meaning full career and take steps in
creating a progressive nursing workforce by reskilling, upskilling and
continuous learning.”
Ms Pua advising on how to attract and
retain nursing students
The seminar ended with closing remarks by the Head of
Department of Nursing, Ms Liew Siew Fun.
A group photo of the speakers and
participants
To read more on UTAR Department of Nursing’s 10th
anniversary celebration, click
here.
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