As it gets closer to my departure date, I am being "filled in" with all kinds of information. As I get the information I plan to post it here on the blog, more for my own journaling about this adventure than anything.
So, read at your own risk :)
Today I received a phone call from a woman who has spent the last few months in Burundi teaching at the same place I will be going. She had a lot of useful information to share in only a few short minutes...
Although I have been told that the students are to know English to be in the nursing program, I was informed today, that usually by the time they finish the program they know some English, and that is because their instructors often speak English and that is how they learn.
So, I will be teaching my students in English, and they will understand little to none of it. It was suggested to find a student in the room that speaks some English and have them translate for me as I lecture. She said, it is very hard to keep control of the classroom, because even if you raise your voice, they don't have a clue what you are saying, so it doesn't matter much. At this point in the conversation the image of the teacher from Charlie Brown pops in my head, where all the students hear from the teacher is "mmmwaaah mmmwaaah mmmwaaah". Well of course it is hard to keep control of the class like this. I guess the first thing on my list to do before I go is learn how to ask them to be quiet in French!
When I asked her what I should plan on teaching, she said, "med-surg". When I pressed for more specific information to this, she said, well "just teach them what you know and you are comfortable with, even if they have had it before, they won't know." Ha! Okay then, this is going to be fun :) But, really we do not realize how blessed we are here in the U.S. to have universities that have curriculum's and standards and course objectives, textbooks, etc. These students are left to the mercy of who ever happens to volunteer to teach them.
This instructor shared with me a few things to expect about the students....she said that they have little to no manual dexterity skills, and just taking a blood pressure or weighing a baby is a huge task for them. She attributes this to the fact that they have never had any toys or anything to play with to work on these types of skills with their hands. When I think about teaching my beginning students here in the U.S. they too struggle with taking blood pressures in the beginning, but once you show them one time how to put the blood pressure cuff on, and how to inflate the cuff and where to hold the stethoscope, they pretty much get it, and the rest of the learning curve is learning how to listen for the correct sounds, and what that means for the patient. For these African students, just learning how to put the cuff on takes many many tries, because it is such a difficult skill for them. Makes me think how difficult it must be for them to learn to start an IV.
There is a group of masters students at the university that I will be asked to help with their research and thesis projects as well. This is not something I have done in the U.S. as an educator and was a little concerned about taking on this task....until I heard what the thesis projects were. One is about hand washing before caring for pediatric patients (not just patients in general, but just pediatric patients! Yikes, that makes me think they probably do not see a need for washing your hands prior to caring for adult patients), and one is on the effects of giving pain medications after surgery. Wow....such a different world I will living in for 2 months!
A brand new hospital just opened across the street from the university. This is where I will doing part of my teaching. Apparently when they built the hospital they forgot to put any electricity in the neonatal area, but they put up beautiful long and expensive golden curtains on every window. They built the operating room on the first floor, but all the patient rooms are on the second floor, and their are only stairs. *insert screeching halt sound here* Yikes, I can not imagine transporting a patient after surgery -- up stairs to get to their room! This sounds dangerous for both the patients and the people that are carrying the patients. I can't even imagine the injuries and complications that can come from this little excursion after surgery...hence the title of this blog...a funny thing happened on the way to your room! Maybe I can suggest this as a research project to one of the masters students...
I was feeling overwhelmed before this conversation, thinking, "I don't know if I am going to know enough or be able to teach them anything valuable." But now I am seeing that there are so many things they need help with and need to be educated on, this is surely going to be a grand adventure! It is probably a job big enough for a whole team of nurse educators!
No comments:
Post a Comment