There is no better way to mark the 50th founding anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima University’s (OLFU) College of Nursing (CON) than through an intensive international conference with some of the world’s distinguished researchers, educators, and collaborators coming together for the advancement of global nursing.
Worthy of grand celebration at that, the CON, along with OLFU’s Research Development and Innovation Center (RDIC), commemorated the memorable milestone with both prestige and high regard of excellence after pulling off the “International Conference: Nursing Excellence towards Global Health and Sustainable Development” on 26 August 2023 at the Assembly Hall, RISE Tower.
With over 200 in-person participants, of which are nursing professionals, aspirants, and academicians from across the various campuses of OLFU, and delegates from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Valenzuela Medical Center, Don Mariano Memorial State University, Trinity University of Asia, Western Visayas State University, and East Avenue Medical Center – the conference was a conclusive success.
During the ceremonial opening of the event, the entrance of colors set the tone of the event. This was followed by the singing of the Philippine National Anthem that was graciously assisted by the OLFU Chorale.
The dynamic OLFU President, Dr. Caroline Marian Enriquez, formally kicked off the program with an influential speech centered on gratitude, partnership, and opportunity.
For the academe trailblazer, the conference is a powerful display of widened possibilities gained when research, education, and practice are empowered to defy transborder challenges.
As she averred, the same platform serves as a proof of “Our Lady of Fatima University’s drive to make sure that whatever nursing expertise [and] learnings” are enjoyed at OLFU, one of the ultimate thrusts is to share it with its partners.
“This is a testament to our shared global commitment to improving healthcare, enhancing patient outcomes, and promoting excellence in the practice of nursing,” President Enriquez said while acknowledging the partners of OLFU including Thailand’s Rangsit University and China’s Sias University.
The academic visionary proceeded to lay out the coverage of the conference, to wit: critical nursing disciplines, evidence-based practices, patient-centered care, nursing leadership, and integration of healthcare deliveries.
Consequently, the OLFU chief proceeded to introduce the intellectual powerhouse who would comprise the keynote and plenary speakers namely Dr. Karen Morin, professor emerita at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in USA; Jenica Ana Rivero, nursing educator at Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand; Dr. Rita Munley Gallagher, chief executive officer for Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing – Phi Gamma Chapter; Dr. Vivien Wu Xi, assistant professor for Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies at National University Singapore; Dr. Nuttapol Yuwanich, program director for School of Nursing at Rangsit University; Dr. Michael Joseph Dino, director for Research Development and Innovation Center (RDIC) at OLFU; and Dr. Melvin Miranda, president for Philippine Nurses Association (PNA).
Preceding the conference proper was another special message rendered by Dean Maria Luisa Uayan of College of Nursing (CON) who proudly flexed the continued pursuit of the institution to transfigure its academic mantra.
“We are here for one very good reason – it is our testimony of improving man as man, our constant search for truth in science, and in caring; to learn more, new, [and] fresh knowledge that would propel us to the next decades of touching lives,” she said while vowing to deliver excellent and quality education in nursing care.
The academician went on to celebrate the inter-regional friendship forged to understand nursing in a universal perspective, further corroborating that this exact universality is demanding “to create culturally congruent communities, [and] transnationally compassionate nurses” for the country and across the globe.
Illuminating excellence, nursing excellence
For her keynote speech, Dr. Morin examined excellence in a broader frame of reference where she tracked down its connotations encompassing the term including value, mastery, distinction, and outstanding.
The former Sigma President later cited the weight of excellence in literature where she referenced the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who argued that more than an act, excellence is, in fact, a habit.
After filling in keys of excellence and determining qualities that sustain it, Dr. Morin supplied these requisites to discuss nursing excellence. Per the veteran nursing academic, it is the ability to demonstrate critical thinking, establish presence, and execute clinical judgement supplemented with advocacy and community engagement, among others.
The professor emerita further introduced principles in a global view where she asserted the significance of materializing evidence to guide care, asking questions, global awareness, and understanding global is local.
To close her talk, Dr. Morin deliberated on the surfaces of global health and sustainable development where she effectively covered practices, education, research, and leadership – a formula to maneuver breakthroughs in the nursing field.
Excellence and Innovation in Nursing Education
The pilot plenary was delivered by Jenica Ana Rivero, an experienced registered nurse as well as educator at Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand.
In her comprehensive abstract, Rivero explored the massive and evolving challenges in the global nursing community including the ageing population, worsening workforce shortage, poor pay and status for nurses, underrepresentation of nurses in policy-making, and principally, the inability to keep up with technology.
The expert also analyzed the “preparation-practice gap” that led to the evident mismatch between the nurse administrators’ expectations and the abilities of the newly registered nurses.
To provide a crucial foundation on the topic, Rivero raised the need to transform nursing education from traditional to active learning and from content-heavy to context-rich approach in order to hone future nurses with capable and reliable clinical reasoning.
In assisting this revolution in nursing academia, the teaching professional presented the delivery and approaches including problem-based learning, interprofessional education, debriefing and reflection, gamification, mask education, simulation using Hololens, and TLAN (Thinking Like A Nurse).
Along with these recommendations are peer-reviewed studies and evidence to support its progressive patterns in reshaping the academic system in nursing education.
Public Health Nursing: Excellence and Innovation in Practice
Sigma’s Phi Gamma Chapter CEO Dr. Rita Munley Gallagher took the stage to analyze the areas of nursing, public health, and public health nursing.
According to Gallagher, nursing promotes health awareness, prevention of illness and care of the ill, disabled, and dying while, correlatively, protecting people’s health in general concerns public health.
When armed with education, discipline and, ultimately, the science in both nursing, social, and public health, the equation is holistically inclusive which now determines public health nursing.
The healthcare leader enumerated the essential services of public health including monitoring, diagnosing and investigating health; information dissemination; education; community partnership mobilization; policy development; shaping competent workforce; and research, among others.
For public health nursing to be qualified as excellent, Gallagher emphasized its hallmarks depend on the accessibility of leaders who encourage autonomy, support innovation, foster transparency and communication about shared goals, and the extent of significant emphasis placed on individual growth and professional development.
The future of public health nursing has also been identified with both excellence and innovation as working fuels that propel the nursing academic landscape.
Community-based e-Health Program for Older Adults with Chronic Diseases
Sustaining the intensive confab in the afternoon session was Assistant Professor Dr. Vivien Wu Xi of National University of Singapore whose paper navigates the electronic approach on research at a community level.
In her pivotal paper, the nursing educator dived into contrasting topics in a single study such as using technology for the chronic management of older adults and caregivers, and intergenerational programs to promote health longevity in the community.
In a diverse investigation approach, the delivery of the aforesaid e-health program involved both traditional and innovative processes which means that the face-to-face group therapy, the e-health platform itself followed by virtual follow-up were integrated at a linear phase.
As a pilot evaluation, Wu Xi’s studies unearthed challenges in developing community-based health intervention for seniors in the scope of data collection, ethical board process, program development, multilateral coordination, among others. The identified inputs are seen to become practical references in pursuing the same probe in the future, both for local and global researchers.
RSU Vaccination Center Service: From Education to Practice
In a casually lenient discussion, Rangsit University School of Nursing Program Head Dr. Nuttapol Yuwanich presented a Covid-19 paper documenting the successful approach of RSU in prevailing over the fourth wave of the pandemic in Thailand in December 2020.
By establishing the concept that “university is a community,” his paper suggested that the deliberate vaccination program was absolutely essential.
In building the inclusive RSU Vaccination Center, the institution applied Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory in its place management principle in the belief that managing the environment in the vaccination unit will simply control disease transmission.
On top of this, the Caritas Motive of the Caring Theory by Katie Eriksson also played a vital part in the initiative to provide Thai people with the nursing services they need.
As a result, the vaccination center supplied a total of 66,246 doses of Covid-19 shots, a significant number that had augmented the efforts of the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand in its national vaccination efforts in that year.
As a win-win situation, the volunteers including students, teachers, and university staff delivered their knowledge and skills during the vaccination course, no less a solid testimony of theories materialized into actual professional experience.
Excellence and Innovation in Nursing Research
From the get-go, Director of OLFU’s RDIC Dr. Michael Dino simplified his loaded discourse by presenting the 4C’s – changes, challenges, chances, and choices – in nursing research.
With a candid narration of his then ever-transforming dreams of his yesteryears before actually pursuing a nursing program in college, the research chief asked his audience about their superpowers – what are your traits, tools, and tricks as a nurse and researcher?
In bringing up the value of TLC that originally pertains to tender, love and care, Dino continued to illuminate his audience on the flexible paths of nursing industry by presenting the dynamic context of TLC which could now mean time, love and commitment; teaching, learning and creating; and for nursing scholars, truth, laurels, and collaboration.
The RDIC director continued his talk by emphasizing that as global healthcare providers, research is an imperative scope in providing support that is substantial in the actual field of practice.
In a nutshell, as he further demonstrated, patient values, clinical experience, and best scientific evidence work together to solidify evidence-based practices.
With the current call for more quality research in nursing becoming urgent, Dino pursued to define excellent nursing research that should meet the requirement of being comparable, reliable, acceptable, valid and explicit.
As documented in his paper “Clocking out: Nurses refuse to work in a time of pandemic”, the director presented the mindsets and sense-making of successful researchers to stress that excellence is a commitment.
Dino also took the opportunity to share the factors that shape “unhappy researchers” involving article publication rejection, exorbitant publication fees, access-restricted article, limited research funding, long-winded ethics reviews and harsh and unfair peer reviews. Exacerbating these factors are challenges to pursue research due to low wages, limited partnership with the government, training and retraining, issues in terms of patentable innovations, and limited schedules.
In the concept of innovation in nursing excellence, the research expert proudly flexed his catalogue of works and studies driven to capitalize on the advancement of technology. The RDIC head yet again cited the establishment of Multiple Applications for Reality-Virtuality Experience Laboratory (MARVEL) at OLFU through the support of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
In delivering service excellence into the table, the discussion also introduced healthcare robots, and the explorative projects that offer human intervention development, among others.
To cap off his part, Dino on a rather personal note, defined excellence as a way to discover one’s purpose.
Excellence and Innovation in Nursing Leadership
Paying homage to the nursing icons including Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing; Clara Barton, institutor of American Red Cross; Anastacia Giron-Tupas, the most revered Filipino nurse-academician in Philippine history, Nurses Association President Dr. Melvin Miranda shared their legacies that configure today’s nursing advocacy and healthcare system.
The plenary later turned into a strategic opportunity as Miranda presented to the invitees the leadership route of Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) in the current decade.
As an assertive trajectory, PNA eyes to become the primary professional association advancing the welfare and development of globally competent Filipino nurses by 2030.
The roadmap of the organization executes a bottom-up approach embedded with a culture of excellence and dynamic leadership. To demonstrate, key movements are determined including the alignment and consistency of direction across all levels of PNA, broadening the engagement opportunities with stakeholders, pushing for clear and research-based advocacies promoting nurses’ welfare, and securing a transparent, policy-based and responsible utilization of resources, among many others.
Streamlining Exhaustive Dialogue in Fora
To efficiently unpack the conference, a two-session forum was administered for the speakers to cater to questions and clarifications following a series of plenaries.
A broad set of queries was tackled at this juncture, covering modern and progressive disciplines including the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), and the direction of public health nursing in terms of inclusivity.
The panel of speakers did also respond to questions regarding business models in nursing education, the enactment of the Comprehensive Nursing Bill in the Philippines, research funding, and the proposal to institutionalize nursing departments in hospitals.
To wrap up the high-yielding confab, Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Heracleo Lagrada expressed his gratitude to the foreign partners, attendees, and the OLFU administrators who worked hand in hand in bringing the headline affair to astute life.
The conference concluded in high-spirits where all esteemed guests and delegates of host universities posed for group photos. — Raymond Lumagsao
