STUART CHURCHILL GIVES HIS OPINION ON THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY MAKING NURSING AN ACADEMIC DEGREE

Being a hospital trained General and Psychiatric Registered Nurse and hold a degree in Health Science and a Master in Management specialising hospital resource development, with 50 years’ of healthcare experience, feel that I am well placed to make an opinion on the problems that have been caused by making nursing an academic degree. It was very clear that the development of specialist services trained at University carried more weight and looked down at nurses as just hand maidens of the medical profession. As time passed it was not uncommon to find social workers, psychologists or physiotherapist heads of departments, in Australia you could find social workers and physiotherapist running mental illness with very little hands on experiences. It is not hard to visualise why the powers to be wanted nursing to be a degree subject. Having worked as a University lecturer I can say without question, that going to a University is not just about learning, but for most a rite of passage of behaviour contra to learning and becoming part of an academic club with a certificate saying I have been there. Too many go on and never really use the academic knowledge gained at University.

It is clear when you look at the number of Nursing Degrees gained in any year how many are working for the NHS two years after gaining their Degree. In understanding why, you have to look at what is academically learnt at University and what is lacking when starting on a hospital ward as a registered nurse. Too many are not prepared for the complex care interaction between those who ‘suffer’, and the psychological need for empathy and support, as an individual is treated and supported through recovery. The lack of experienced nurses find it hard to mentor newly registered nurses and the expectation of knowing how to deal with the demands creating high levels of stress, built up over time, starts to affect every part of their life and often becomes too hard for them to continue. In discussions with newly qualified nurses, in how they found working as a qualified nurse two answered stood out, ranging from having no idea of what nursing was all about before starting University. Worked through all of the hands on experience placements, did not learn the reality of bedside nursing and within weeks it stressed her so much she had difficulty sleeping and keeping a healthy diet and was not sure if she would stay in nursing. At the other end of the scale, was from a person who started off as a carer in a nursing home and a care assistant in a hospital before starting at University, who said that too much of the University training concentrated on the academic understanding of learning and not enough of what was between the words, when asked to explain he said that hands on care was not an academic subject and there was not enough about the emotional impact of care. If he had not spent three years working with people who ‘suffered’ he would have not made it through his time at University. This was the core of all the conversation and it was agreed that if they had spent time in a hospital before deciding to do nursing would have prepared them better or chose another subject of study. Question two, are we developing the best nurses based on academic standards or should it be more about care and should hospitals play a much bigger role in how nurses are trained?

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