Professional: Students did their Nightingale presentations during our morning sessions. They did very well. The application to Vietnamese healthcare was particularly interesting as Nightingale is very appropriate for his population at this point in time. The students told of patients having to share beds--literally 2-sometimes 3 patients in one bed. In the afternoon, Kay and I met with the Chief Nurse Executive of the near-by hospital. She brought up Nightingale's philosophy and pointed to a picture on her wall. She went on to tell us that her hospital has approximately 2000 beds with an average daily census of around 4000 patients. We can all do the math. She very sadly said that she has tried to figure out what to do about this issue but has yet to come up with a solution. She spoke of patients with incisions laying in bed next to another patient! She also said that the nurse-patient ratio on the wards at night is about 40-50:1 and in the ICU/CCU, typically 7:1. I don't remember if she told us or if one of our students told us, but they do not have heart monitors in the CCU. We did not get to tour the whole hospital but they did take us to see the Emergency Department. I am having difficulty finding the words to describe the scene; "controlled chaos" come to mind. There are no cubicles--just rows of carts with a narrow aisle between the rows. I did see a couple of carts with 2 obviously unrelated patients sharing the space. The Head Nurse of the ED said that they typically staff with 20 RNs per shift and I think she said about 300-350 patients per 24 hours but I am not sure I remembered that figure correctly. Seems like so many but I think that is what she said. It makes sense in that there were at least 50 patients there during our visit. Unfortunately, I was not able to take pictures. They didn't say, "No" but I sensed that they were not comfortable with the idea. One of our students had some pictures that would be emailed to us.
Thursday was spent working with the students on their theory development presentation. They worked very hard and I think will do well with this work. Thursday evening, the Assistant to the Dean, and a graduate of the UMP MSN program took us out to dinner. Kay had her as a student when she taught here the last time. They are very anxious to get a PhD program launched at UMP.
Personal: I am trying to figure out how to pack without going over 50lbs. on my suitcase and still fit everything in! Could be a challenge...
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