The Nursing Centre News

 An interesting study has been undertaken in the US by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN) and the New York Times bestselling authors from Vital Smarts.

The website says:

'In the 2005 study, Silence Kills: The Seven Crucial Conversations for Healthcare, VitalSmarts and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses uncovered the conversations that are particularly difficult and yet particularly crucial for healthcare professionals to master. Key findings include:

• 84 percent of doctors have seen coworkers take shortcuts that endanger patients
• 88 percent of doctors work with people who show poor clinical judgment
• Fewer than 10 percent of physicians, nurses, and other clinical staff directly confront their colleagues about their concerns

The 10 percent of healthcare workers who confidently raise crucial concerns observe better patient outcomes, work harder, are more satisfied, and are more committed to staying in their jobs. If more healthcare workers could behave like the influential 10 percent, the result would be significant reductions in medical errors, increased patient safety, higher productivity, and lower turnover.'

To find out more, including downloading the interesting whitepaper, visit www.silenttreatmentstudy.com. 

Recently, our Director, Gilly Johnson, was invited as the subject matter expert on a program called Orienting New Staff: Being a Better Buddy. This program showed through the Aged Care TV Channel, Australia's leading member driven training and education TV channel for staff in residential aged care.

If you work in residential aged care and want to know more about the Aged Care TV Channel - go here: www.agedcarechannel.com.au.

If you'd like to know more about designing and putting in place a great buddy system - contact us.

Overview

If you are a Registered Nurse, Enrolled Nurse or Midwife in Australia and you are seeking to undertake continuing professional development or additional formal study, don't miss out on the current round of Australian Government Scholarships. 

Links to Scholarships

Here are links to some of the current round of scholarships closing on 1 October 2010:

Nursing and Allied Health Scholarship and Support Scheme: Continuing Professional Development including National Nurse Re-entry.

• Go here to find out more: http://www.rcna.org.au/scholarships/nahssscpd

Nursing and Allied Health Scholarship and Support Scheme: Postgraduate.

• Go here to find out more: http://www.rcna.org.au/scholarships/nahssspg

Nursing and Allied Health Scholarship and Support Scheme: Postgraduate.

• Go here to find out more: http://www.rcna.org.au/scholarships/nahsssug

Aged Care Nursing Scholarships.

• Go here to find out mroe: http://www.rcna.org.au/scholarships/agedcarenursingschols

Overview

Recently we had an enquiry about how to go about meeting the new Continuing Professional Development (CPD) standard of national registration. 

Here are some ideas and information to help you with this new requirement of nursing registration in Australia:

Download the Nursing and Midwifery Continuing Professional Development Standard from the Nursing and Midwifery Board website - click here to download.

Find out more about what constitutes Continuing Professional Development via the FAQs on CPD from the Nursing and Midwifery Board website - click here to download.

Read the Continuing Competence Framework from the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council - click here to download.

PLUS

Did you know that you can use the FREE Continuing Professional Development online diary in The Nursing Centre's Career Centre?  If you've not joined yet it only takes a minute and you can combine managing your resume, keeping your CPD and looking for your next career job all in the one place.

Click here to join the FREE Career Centre now!

One of the aims of The Nursing Centre is to encourage nurses to actively think about and discuss contemporary issues that influence both their nursing careers and the nursing workforce.  Our aim is not to replicate the vast amount of formal published nursing literature, but to write a series of informal articles that can promote thinking and discussion.

This series of papers are called the Pulse Check Papers series - with the aim of keeping the pulse on issues of relevance about nursing careers and the nursing workforce.

We've just uploaded the first paper - Public Relations and the Nursing Preceptor Role.  Click here to download the paper.

Plus - we're on the lookout for nurses who would like to write a Pulse Check Paper with us or suggest a topic.  If you're keen to get involved - just drop a line to info@thenursingcentre.com.au. 

We look forward to your feedback and involvement. 

Nursing is one of the most (if not the most) trusted profession in the community.  This means that nurses are trusted to enter into therapeutic relationships that adhere to professional boundaries. 

According to Peterson (1992), personal boundaries in nursing are defined as limits which protect the space between the profession's power and the client's vulnerability; that is they are the borders that mark the edges between a professional, therapeutic relationship and a non-professional or personal relationship between a nurse and a person in their care.

In February 2010, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council, in conjunction with the Nursing Council of New Zealand, released a new document: 'A nurse's guide to professional boundaries', which had previously been available from the ANMC website in draft format.

This document is a companion document to the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct for Nurses.

To access the latest version - click here.

If you subscribe to the Australian Nursing Journal (ANJ) - why not turn to page 7 of the June 2010 edition to read about the Director of The Nursing Centre - Gilly Johnson - in an article titled: Passionate About Nursing.

Gilly was interviewed by the Editor of the ANJ recently and her story features in this edition.

To subscribe to the Australian Nursing Journal - go here: www.anf.org.au/html/publications_anj.html

In the second half of 2010, we will be launching a series of new education workshops, especially tailored and designed for nurses! 

Here's what's coming up:

For All Nurses

• Reconnect with your Nursing Desire - Career Planning for Nurses
• Career Coaching for Nurses (1:1 coaching service)

For Preceptors

• Strategies for Giving Feedback

For Nurse Educators

• How to Conduct Mentoring Groups and Circles
• How to Design an Effective Preceptor Program

For Nurse Managers

• Help! I'm now a Manager - Making the Transition from Clinician to Manager
• Exemplary Leadership for Nurse Managers

To keep in contact with us as the dates and more information becomes available - why not join our mailing list OR contact us.

Have you ever wondered about the nurses who are deployed into military environments?  They face healthcare environments that are hard to imagine.

Read about one nurse's story here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/my-tour-of-hell/story-e6frg8h6-1225875472110.

The Nursing Centre has recently conducted two Preceptor Development Workshops in Melbourne and Adelaide.  We had a wonderful time meeting two superb groups of nurses, all of whom are passionate about and committed to supporting the role of preceptors.

Here's some of the feedback that we've received from workshop participants:

• I really enjoyed the workshop and felt that it gave me lots of new ideas for our organisation.
• Thank you for an enjoyable workshop on Friday. The information presented was extremely worthwhile and useful in my current roles, and was presented in a relaxed manner.  I feel very passionate about the role of preceptoring and mentoring and of nurses in the workplace being well supported, so it was great to chat with other people who feel the same.
• The feedback from our staff who attended the workshop has been very positive.
• I found this workshop really beneficial and I have some strategies to try out at work with preceptors and students.
• Thank you - very informative.  I enjoyed listening and gaining 'new ways' of viewing this subject.
• Really great day - thank you!  Even though by the end on a Friday afternoon I was tired, I still felt engaged. Thank you!
• Have become more enthusiastic about preceptorship and feel comfortable to spread my enthusiasm to others.

Our sincere thanks to all participants for their energy and engagement at the workshops - we've also learnt alot from you too!

We look forward to bringing you more Preceptor Development Workshops in the second half of the year - do join our mailing list to keep in touch with our events.