PLUGGING THE GAPS
Among the practical skills that nurses could be better equipped with are caring for a dying patient, managing a patient with complex needs such as tracheostomy and assisting in resuscitation. These events, however, do not happen frequently, Ms Ang noted.
“Nonetheless, our newly graduated nurses are supported by mentors and preceptors, especially during the early years of their careers. And, they’re not left alone during such complex situations,” she said.
SGH acknowledged that more can be done to enable nurses to transit more smoothly into the workforce after their studies. One way is to look into the training methodology of nurses, it said.
For instance, a recently launched five-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing – Master of Science in Nursing (BSN-MSN) programme involves 36 weeks of clinical residency at one of SingHealth’s institutions.
This is up from the 32 weeks required by the Singapore Nursing Board. The extra four weeks of residency during the programme developed by SIT in collaboration with SingHealth will allow students to devote more time to clinical practice so that they gain more confidence to perform basic nursing procedures independently after they graduate, SGH said.
MSN students will be required to work on real-life clinical problems to improve patient care, said Adjunct Professor Tracy Carol Ayre, SingHealth’s group chief nurse and the study’s senior author.
“I am confident that graduates from this new BSN-MSN programme will be better equipped, both in knowledge and practical know-how, to take on the nursing challenges that an ageing population will bring,” she said.
WORKING CLOSER WITH SCHOOLS
With the identification of such gaps, the institutions are working even closer with the schools, said Ms Ang.
“The survey findings really reinforce that we need to work even closer with our training arm, with our nursing school to make sure that we very much prepare our nurses better and smoothen the whole transition process,” she said.
One way to tighten the relationship between the learning and practical worlds is to allow students to identify their areas of interest early on, said Ms Ang.
“If we can match interest to a specific clinical practice, learning becomes more relevant, learning is enhanced. And this would then lead to a more successful transition of our student nurses into very confident practicing nurses in the future,” she said.
