Otago Polytech Workshop on Sustainability and Simulation

Otago Polytechnic School of Nursing to host pre-conference workshop on Sustainability and Simulation

Otago Polytechnic School of Nursing is hosting a free symposium and pre-conference workshop for rural nurses on learning in the 21st century, heralding the start of the National Rural Health Conference 2016 being held in Dunedin next week.

“The workshop will be a great opportunity to meet old and new colleagues and showcase how we incorporate sustainability and simulation into our Bachelor of Nursing programme,” says Jean Ross, Otago Polytechnic Principal Nursing Lecturer.

This is the first time the National Rural Health Conference 2016 has been held in Dunedin for more than a decade and delegates from Great Barrier Island to Stewart Island are expected to converge on Dunedin for the four day conference from Thursday 31 March to Sunday 3 April.

“Having the conference here is significant because the Southern District Health Board covers the largest area in the country, with the lowest population, and many centres depend on rural nursing. Otago Polytechnic’s Bachelor of Nursing has a rural thread running throughout Years One, Two and Three, with every student doing at least one or two rural placements,” says Ms Ross.

“Using simulated patients to educate our student nurses is something new for our colleagues who have been in practise for many years and we want to give the delegates who attend our workshop that learning opportunity. We also teach our nurses to be sustainable practitioners which is something we want to share with other rural nurses as well,” she says.

The third part of the Otago Polytechnic pre-conference workshop is looking at the language of rural nursing and how it relates to the four core elements of nursing – trust, respect, partnership and integrity - to enable effective dialogue to take place within the profession.

The Otago Polytechnic School of Nursing pre-conference workshop will be held at the School of Nursing, Forth Street, Dunedin, on Thursday 31 March.

ENDS

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