New lab and teaching facilities for College of Nursing

Due to the demand for high quality education, IUBAT is coping with increased enrolment by expanding teaching space. The new teaching wing, completed summer 2010 provides three floors of faculty offices and classrooms, all equipped with digital projectors. The large, bright classrooms are well-suited for lectures and in-class group work. Already work has begun for a fourth floor of academic space. To the right of the main campus building, new lab facilities are under construction for agriculture, computer science, engineering, hospitality and tourism management, as well as a 400 square foot lab for the College of Nursing. The new space, simulating a hospital patient room, will provide a more realistic setting for student practice.

 

 

Growing support for the nursing profession

The Daily Star, a major English-language newspaper in Bangladesh, reports: “Nurses should be entitled to a comparatively standard pay structure and status with respect to other professionals in society, if Bangladesh is to lift its nursing services to international standards, [according to local experts speaking at a conference]. They also stressed upholding nurses' image in the country and improving their services through creating avenues of training abroad and giving promotions as per their skills. Prof Dr A K Azan Khan said, like many other countries in the world, Bangladesh is facing the crisis of skilled nurses: ‘It is frustrating that the doctor-nurse ratio in our country is 5:1 while the standard ratio should be 1:5.’ Poor financial support, lack of appreciation, vague status of nurses and negative social attitude towards them - are some of the factors that discourage the youths from joining this profession, he explained.” Daily Star October 20, 2010. 

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Peer-reviewed report published

This summer, our first report on this project was published in a peer-reviewed journal. “A Canada-Bangladesh partnership for nurse education: case study” by Alex Berland, John Richards and Karen Lund appeared in the on-line edition of International Nursing Review http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1466-7657.2010.00813.x/full. The report describes progress to date and lessons learned including the importance of 1) integrating nurse training with a general university able to provide core courses; 2) countering the low status of nursing and developing a caring attitude among students; 3) instilling critical thinking as opposed to rote learning. Next steps are identified: mechanisms to support networking in the local health system; sharing of resources; assuring program quality. The paper will be of interest to those concerned with nurse education and human resource development in less developed countries.

Nursing students involved in community research

This summer, SFU Professor John Richards a long-time supporter of IUBAT, returned to Dhaka for his umpteenth visit. On this occasion, his mission was to promote the recent publication of a study by the Centre for Policy Research, based at IUBAT. This report analyzes a detailed survey, conducted by the IUBAT College of Nursing students, of nutrition conditions and purchasing choices among women in local shanty communities over the past two years. Its principal finding is that poor nutrition due to unbalanced diet accompanied by frequent use of harmful substances is a growing threat to public health. The publication, “Benchmarking the Nutritional Status of Women in the Tongi-Ashulia Road Slums”, authored by John Richards, Afifa Shahrin and Karen Lund is available at http://www.iubat.edu/cpr/ .

Thanks to our volunteers for Summer Semester 2010

As summer 2010 ends we thank our volunteers for this semester. Canadian Rhodina Hobbs taught medical-surgical nursing and supervised students at United Hospital. RNs, Emilie Fourrey from France and Sonie Meyer from USA, who both presently live in Dhaka, also supervised the medical-surgical nursing students. Emilie also supervised students practicing maternal health at the Centre for Woman and Child Health. Sonie, who is an American Heart Association Instructor, trained and certified students in CPR. Canadian Rebekah Lowes taught Community Health Nursing, which includes assessments of the varied communities around IUBAT. Cassandra Ma, also from Canada, taught medical surgical nursing and a new First Aid course, not only to nursing students but also to IUBAT faculty and security guards. Corina Oudijk from the Netherlands spent two busy semesters with us, teaching and supervising clinical practice. Thank you all!

IUBAT celebrates International Nurses Day 2010

IUBAT faculty and students celebrated International Nursing Day in May to raise awareness of the important contribution of caring, well-educated nurses to a modern health care system. Prof. M. Alimullah Miyan, IUBAT Vice-Chancellor created the College of Nursing because he believes that Bangladesh needs university level education for nurses. Opening the event, he welcomed representatives from our teaching hospital partners, Centre for Woman and Child Health, Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed and United Hospital (thanks for the cake!), as well as guests from Apollo Hospital Dhaka and Dhaka University College of Nursing. IUBAT College of Nursing students delivered presentations on nursing care for chronic illness, describing how RNs can help patients cope with these problems.