| Thursday, July 10, 2008: 8:30 AM-9:45 AM | |||
| Recognizing Culture as a Key Factor in Improving Nursing Care/education through Teaching Nursing Missions: A Case Study in Guyana, South America | |||
| Learning Objective #1: Understand the historic development and investment of a culture in present day nursing practice and education in order to identify resistance to change. | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify how nursing missions can introduce compatible change elements and paradigm shifts that will become integrated and sustainable in the international community. | |||
| Nurses can promote international collaboration opportunities through medical/nursing missions with an emphasis on education. This symposia focuses on the process of dissemination of knowledge and leadership empowerment at St Joseph Mercy Hospital in Guyana, South America. During the last forty years (the Guyanese Burnham era), nursing education and practice have fallen behind nursing skills and practice considered acceptable in other countries. Nursing care in Guyana is based on a 1940 British document outlining proper nursing care to ensure a clean, fed patient with a servitude nursing role. Prior to 2004, nurses did not conduct physical exams, understand evidence-based research/guidelines/protocols, nor understand the role of patient advocacy. Most of Guyana has electricity, access to the internet, and necessary equipment to provide basic healthcare; yet, traditional practices (not technology) have proven to be deeply-ingrained, making education and empowerment of nurses difficult. From 2004-2007, six American nurses completed missions ranging from 5 weeks to 6 months that met with mixed success in transforming nursing care at St Joseph Mercy Hospital in Guyana. The process has been riddled with road blocks embedded in culture, country ethics and politics. The dissemination of knowledge created a cascade of events unanticipated and resulted in role confusion and chaos with cultural conflict. Nursing care can be (and has been) improved by simple education, yet culture and context must be considered. In this symposia, we will share a case study of our journey of change with personal and professional reflections on the contextual cultural factors that influenced our successes and failures. The Guyanese economy, emigration, and political and cultural concerns will be addressed in conjunction with issues concerning the right to intervene with subsequent responsibilities. The journey of change at St Joseph Mercy Hospital can serve as a framework for dissemination of nursing knowledge and leadership to nurses from an international perspective and in other developing countries. | |||
| Symposium Organizer: | Maria Kidner, FNP-BC, MSN | ||
| Symposium Presenters: | Maria Kidner, FNP-BC, MSN Eileen Haney, RN, BSN John A. O'Connor, MDiv, MA | ||
| Cultural Context Revisited John A. O'Connor, MDiv, MA | |||
| A Case Study in Cultural Care Eileen Haney, RN, BSN | |||
| The Guyana Project Maria Kidner, FNP-BC, MSN | |||