About the Author: Sunnia Sabir is a registered nurse and educator with 10 years of clinical and 6 years of teaching experience. She currently serves as a Lecturer at the Liaquat National College of Nursing and is pursuing her MScN at Aga Khan University. She is passionate about nursing education, clinical excellence, and preparing competent, compassionate future nurses.
In a high-pressure hospital
emergency department, where every moment determines a patient’s recovery and
survival, a nurse requires rapid and precise decision making. What would
confirm efficient and reliable decision-making? The answer to this question is
simple yet potent: Quality Education.
The Sustainable Development Goal 4
determined by United Nations (2015), stresses to guarantee comprehensive and
fair quality education and enhancing lifetime learning possibilities for all.
The aim of this blog is to discover the connection between SDG 4 and nursing
education, describing how quality nurse training influences health and
wellbeing (SDG 3).
About two weeks back, I went to see
one of my relatives in the medical unit. I witnessed a scenario that made me
realize how important nursing education is in patient safety. A 50-year-old
female patient with uncontrolled Diabetes mellitus was admitted to the ward
with fever, shortness of breath and confusion. The family believed that her
current condition was due to high blood glucose levels only. However, the nurse
attending that patient vigilantly assessed the patient and identified that her
symptoms may be related to sepsis as diabetic patients are at high risk to
develop sepsis.
She immediately informed the health
care team, monitored oxygen saturation, blood pressure, respiratory rate,
temperature and blood sugar levels. Because, of her quick clinical evaluation,
prompt treatment initiated which included intravenous fluids, oxygen, insulin and
antibiotic therapy. If the nurse could not detect early, this could have
progressed towards complications such as Septic shock. She
further educated the patient for medication compliance, blood glucose
monitoring and lifestyle modifications. This situation helped me realize that
nursing education is not restricted to classroom or textbook learning; instead,
it greatly influences patient safety and recovery.
Beyond Degree
Research also confirms firm relationship among educated nurses and patient results. According to Aiken et al. (2014), observational study in European hospitals, he discovered that increasing the number of bachelor’s-trained nurses in a hospital helped in the reduction of patient mortality. However, is the acquisition of a degree enough? In the discipline of nursing, a mere rise in the number of nursing graduates does not promise improved healthcare outcomes without the integration of modern education to meet the current clinical needs.
According to the World Health Organization (2020), the most powerful approach to improve overall health systems is to reinforce quality nursing education. Hence, quality education has a synergistic effect and strengthens SDG 3 good health and wellbeing.
Including Modern Technology
To address these complexities, the nursing curriculum needs to be consistently updated with new evidence-based practices aligned to manage recent clinical challenges (Frank et al., 2010). This calls for integrating:
- Competency Based Medical Education (CBME) to achieve complete command on advanced nursing skill.
- ·
Faculty
Development to keep the educators updated with recent nursing innovations.
- ·
Interprofessional
Education to foster alliance among healthcare fields.
These technological enhancements do
not promise a larger nursing workforce but highly skilled nurses. During the pandemic COVID-19, digital learning
and telemedicine were two main sources to deliver education and ensure patient
health care needs are met. Therefore, technological adaptability is an
essential element in the provision of modernized care.
Culturally Competent Care
Along with quality nursing
education, cultural competence must be incorporated to enhance patient-centered
care, as it is a deliberate asset to optimize wellbeing (Betancourt et al.,
2003). For example, a nurse attending a diabetic patient observing fast during
the month of Ramadan needs health education and medication adjustments keeping
in mind his religious values. Madeleine Leninger in the 1960’s proposed the
Culture Care Diversity and Universality Theory, with the core concept of transcultural
care improves patient outcomes (Parker, 2005). Hence, culturally congruent care
is not an optional expertise but an important necessity to provide quality
nursing care.
Call to Action
In nursing, we must commit
ourselves to continuous learning and ensure that we are fully equipped with the
tools of scientific knowledge and practice. Advocacy for policies such as
educational funding, modernized clinical skill development needs to be stressed. Finally, healing initiates with quality
education and knowledge is the essence of quality and lifesaving nursing care.
I welcome you all to share your thoughts on how continuous learning has shaped
your clinical practice.
References
United
Nations. (2015). Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality education. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/
Aiken, L.
H., Sloane, D. M., Bruyneel, L., Van den Heede, K., Griffiths, P., Busse, R.,
& Sermeus, W. (2014). Nurse staffing and education and hospital mortality
in nine European countries: A retrospective observational study. The Lancet,
383(9931), 1824–1830. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62631-8
World
Health Organization. (2020). State of the world’s nursing 2020: Investing in
education, jobs and leadership. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240003279
Frank, J.
R., Snell, L. S., Cate, O. T., Holmboe, E. S., Carraccio, C., Swing, S. R.,
& Harris, K. A. (2010). Competency-based medical education: Theory to
practice. Medical Teacher, 32(8), 638–645. https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2010.501190
Betancourt,
J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. E., & Ananeh-Firempong, O. (2003).
Defining cultural competence: A practical framework for addressing
racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care. Public Health Reports,
118(4), 293–302. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0033-3549(04)50253-4
Parker, M.
E. (2005). Nursing theories and nursing practice (2nd ed.). F. A. Davis
Company.
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