Break-out session on curriculum, education, nursing needs, challenges
Names, abbreviations, etc., are likely misspelled, misheard, or misconstrued. The following is all paraphrasing and not quotes. The errors, which are surely many, are all mine. Please pardon my spelling - I did not spell check this message. I am cranking it out inbetween other classes using notepad files.
Cindy Tice, Northern Marianas College: Key education issues, solutions, and outcomes: Recruitment and retention. Not successful enough in recruiting local students. And if students go on and pass the NCLEX, then the students offer leave to the United States. Class sizes are small. Non-local students. Retention low post-graduation. [On island retention is low] Mixed mandate: NMC is to train local students in order to staff local facilities and NMC is to provide an opportunity for local students to gain an education useful in work wherever they choose to work. There is a component of their mandate wherein they are to enable students educationally to attain whatever goal the student may have. These goals may include leaving the CNMI. Thus NMC has a role to play in providing opportunities for locals to go stateside.
Chuuk: Retention hard. Four Chuukese graduated from College of the Marshall Islands Nursing School. Simultaneously five or six nurses left the hospital due to personal or medical reasons. But they did not resign, [although gone] for one or two years. We gain what we lose. Low morale. Requests for improvement [continuing education], have been made.
UOG, Guam: Recruiting, retention. We lose 50% to other locations. Numbers dropped recently from 30 to 20 in a class. This is a challenge. Retention on-island post-graduation is a challenge. Three Micronesian students in Second Step/Generic program. Looking at Palau and Marshall's curricula. Studying articulation [options]. Trying to see how students might transfer to UOG and how their courses would articulate [or which courses would articulate]. Trying to assist students in the transition. Looking at what courses will transfer.
Yap. No Continuing Education coordinator. If a doctor comes from outside we take advantage of this [as an educational opportunity]. Two students in Marshall's, one in Palau, two in Fiji in pre-service program under AUSAID. Low morale also an issue in Yap. Working with the AG on salary increase. Each AG has said, "not allowed under the law."
UOG: There are distance education options via PeaceSat.
Kosrae: Retention. Some nurses resigned and joined the United States military. Trying to recruit students to go into nursing school. Training is a need. PeaceSat not necessarily the most useful option: the nurses are not too comfortable in voice only format. If upgraded to video, then maybe useful. [Dana: English is a second language. Learning in the absence of visual cues is especially difficult for a learner working in a second language.] Kosrae has also educated nurses on the job. Kosrae has a practical nursing program, started last Fall. Three trained and graduated [from the one year program]. Four students are outside Kosrae, three in Fiji and one in Japan undergoing midwifery training.
FSM National Government: Understaffing. Could we apply for a grant to students to BSN? Finances are an issue. There is an Associate's Degree program at the College in Nursing. They are recruiting students to enter the program this Fall. Spensin [VPIA COM-FSM] is working on this. Funding is coming from the FSM Congress [for this nursing school at COM-FSM]. We used to have a DMCH grant, or an MCH grant in the early 1990's at UOG.
Terry, Palau: Recruitment and retention are issues. Not too many students want to be nurses. Retention [low]. Palau CA: Career ladder. One year. LPN or CA (Licensed Vocational Nurse or Licensed Practical Nurse). [Nursing program is] 77 credits: too big a credit load. Microbiology, Anatomy, English, and Math are hard. TOEFL of 500 required for AS degree. Terry is the only instructor and the program coordinator. Works a two year cycle single-handed. Low enrollment. Four graduated. Four will start in the Fall. Seven to ten are working on pre-requisite courses. Maybe two of these will start in two years.
(Terry: College only has one instructor for nursing. College claims low student numbers do not justify hiring additional faculty)
Hannah: Shortage is of both type of nurse and level of training at Palau hospital. Where should we focus our recruitment effort? On existing staff or new intake? Do we work on upgrading the skills of existing staff or on obtaining new staff? In Palau there is a licensure board that has to approve all nursing education programs. State board evaluates competencies.
Marshall's: Same problems Late last year leadership looked into why Marshallese did not want to enroll in nursing. Determined that there were too many credits. Students sought out programs that would lead to an AS in a shorter length of time. Also determined that many students left program part-way through the program. High school standards are low. Students come into College underprepared. English and Math skills are very low. Four Marshallese students were given special academic support in an attempt to get them ready to enter the school of nursing. The school at present is mostly non-locals, non-indigenous.
UOG: Any transfer student must meet requirements and take not only nursing courses but the courses needed to fulfill the general education requirements at UOG. Because the degree is a four year degree, and because many transfer students are coming out of two year degree programs with lower general education requirements, many students face having to do additional general education courses. [The result is that they usually cannot finish with two additional years of work at UOG, it often takes longer]. Students do flow from CMI to UOG.
Marshall's: We have a one month "work in the hospital program" for high school seniors. About 25 seniors are selected to participate in the program. The hope is that this experience will encourage the student to consider pursuing studies [in nursing, medicine].
Unknown: There should be entrance and exit tests for students in nursing programs.
Hawaii: Attrition is a problem. We see about 50% attrition. The College needs to have a faculty slot for nursing, but there may be only one slot. Hawaii has a nursing shortage in their hospitals. Hospitals need nurses. Hospital may have an expert nurse (experienced veteran or nurse educator). The expert nurse is easy to identify: they are the person everyone turns to for answers to questions, the "go to" person. Each local hospital agreed to share their expert nurses for half a day once a week This created a team of "faculty" equivalent to a single faculty member, a faculty "pool." Each taught for four hours per week. Nurses were the students: courses upgraded skills. So experts were teaching their own staff! Staff go to classes. When students do clinical work, the expert is the preceptor. This is the "service learning" model.
Hawaii: Expert nurses preceptor students that are also their own hospital staff. Your instructor is your supervisor. Hospital benefits, nurses benefit. College provides curriculum and courses, tests.
[Dana did give a report on the efforts underway at the College. I noted that we had been looking at the Kosrae Practical Nursing certificate as a potential first year program to be replicated in the state campuses. I also noted we would be looking at the extent to which the Pohnpei campus in-service training program with its 200 level courses could be metamorphisized into a second year component for those wishing to continue on beyond the first year.
I noted too that the program was looking like a career ladder program as opposed to a traditional program with an academic core. I said that I was not sure how well this would articulate to programs elsewhere such as Palau, UOG, Marshall's or Hawaii.
I also said that while the first year program might be done in each state, the second year might be done only at one location, possibly on Pohnpei using Pohnpei Hospital as a teaching hospital. I noted that all the various stakeholders and leaders would have to buy into such a concept and that buy-in is not a foregone conclusion. But a second and possibly a third year might occur on Pohnpei and might involve the hospital.]
I hope some of our people will be at the meetings next week on Pohnpei, I regret that I will not be able to be at them. Kathleen will be there, as will Spensin, or so I am led to believe. I would ask that someone please keep me informed of events at those meetings. If necessary I would suggest bringing Maryallen Manual along, if possible and agreeable to her, to keep minutes of the meetings, these programs will impact our division directly.
All the errors are mine, sorry if I have misspoke!