Famous or Infamous?

Today Mina and I harvested the energy from yesterday to continue our workshop with the tutors. Today's topic related to test construction including item writing.  While many of the tutors shared that the information was "a good refresher", when looking at their test questions, many were in need of updating and clarifying so that they were upgraded to an application rather than knowledge level.  Also, most of the tutors were unaware that the blueprint for the national nursing council exam (the exam that licenses nurses in Guyana) was available to them.  In only 10 minutes of going through the blueprint, I discovered that they have both objective and essay style questions, that 60% cover clinical information and 40% cover functional (professional) questions, that over half of questions on both parts deal with interventions (second highest health promotion and communication), and that 70% are either the assessment or intervention steps of the nursing process.  I spent a little time explaining how they can create exams in the school that will most benefit their students on the council exam by mimicking these percentages on their own exams.  Interestingly, this is the very same issue that faculty around the US and Canada face very year- looking at the NCLEX blueprint and areas of greatest weakness in their students based on exit exams and NCLEX results and making sure that exams are truly preparing students for the licensing exams.  

Mina presenting certificates to the tutors

Workshop attendees

The end of the day brought the media (Minister  Dr. Bheri is very big on getting media involve with all programs benefitting the health care sector) with an interview of myself and Mina about our training and our experience with health care, nursing, and nursing education in Guyana.  The interview is supposed to run on the local news tonight, and pictures from the session along with the handing out of "certificates of attendance" for the workshop should appear in the papers tomorrow (I'll provide the link if we are!).  While I was a little excited, as this is the first time in my 2.5 years of working in Guyana that I would be featured or even mentioned in the press, it made me wonder how receptive people are to seeing foreigners in their papers.  We come, provide education, and leave without a backwards glance (most of the time...hopefully our efforts will be sustainable as we continue to work with the schools of nursing and the ministry).  Are we famous or infamous for our efforts?  

Most of our days consist of running to one meeting to the next, most of the time having to switch gears on the short car ride between.  After the faculty training, Mina and I met with Medex Benn (who I just realized is the brother of one of our NICU training graduates!) and Dr. Madan Rambaran who is the director of IHSE (Institute of  Health Science Education) at GPHC.  We were directed by Minister Bheri to meet with Dr. Rambaran about our proposal for accreditation of the neonatal nurse training program, specifically how we get a connection with University of Guyana.  He recommended having the program either, A. be a 1-year certificate program that is house with IHSE/GPHC and sponsored/accredited by UG or B. become a BScN specialty where the program would merge the bachelors of science in nursing with our specialty program and become a model for other nurse training programs to become specialty tracks within the BScN program (currently a 2 year program). He is going to set up a meeting for us on Thursday to meet with faculty from the school of nursing at UG to discuss next steps (we're making steps...preemie steps, but nonetheless...) 

Looking down the hospital grounds

View outside the A&E (accident & emergency) entrance

Sign outside of the pharmacy :-)

The last meeting of the day was with the ward supervisors/managers/nurses about clinical teaching.  It was a follow up to the meeting we had last week, and since it was a smaller group, we had more discussion regarding orientation to the wards, clinical objectives, and making connections between theory and clinical.  The consensus was that having 1 clinical orientation for the students before they begin on the ward would help to clarify objectives and give direction for the clinical session.  The ward nurses said that if they can get the schools of nursing to give them this 1 day/time, they could do the rest.  Yeah for collaboration!  Now to get the schools on board... :-)   Afterward, talking with brother John (the other assistant nurse matron alongside Sister Lalckecharran (who I met in March)- he is in charge of the medical wards and ICU and Sister is in charge of the maternity/NICU block), we discussed having a continued core group of nurses from the ward who want to precept students and commit to helping supervise and educate students in the clinical setting so that there is increased communication between the school and the nursing units as well as standardization of how theory and clinical merge. 

                       View of the entrance to the new pediatric unit next to our group meeting space

Ward supervisors (in green) with staff nurses (in white/blue scrubs) with Brother John

Mina told Brother John and Medex Benn to "act like you're discussing something important"- true to form Brother John is giving Medex Benn a look like he's crazy, a normal look when the two of them talk!

View from Main hospital gates- the security office is the blue hut

Our day finally over at 5:30, Mina and I retired to her hotel for drinks and dinner before I returned to El Dorado to prepare for our journey to Linden tomorrow.  While I was writing this blog, I noticed that in the desk drawer was a copy of "Guyana Inc.", a magazine for entrepreneurs.  On the cover, and in a  feature article was the head of the forestry sector for Guyana, who I felt looked familiar from my lunch at Rishi's grandparents the other day.  Turns out the "wood guy" as they liked to refer to him, who gave us a little rundown of the woods used in the home, is the same one featured in the article.  Again...famous or infamous?  :-)

Picture of "Avi" and his new wife, who we met Sunday