I have also watched this debate with interest, and support what Helen is
saying.
I have just become a practise supervisor for an OH student at Southbank (who
is also one of my full time OH advisors) I attended the university 2 day
supervisors induction last week and was concerned about the new
BSc(Hons)course. For those that don't know the course is now a public health
specialist degree and has students form OH, Health visiting, school nursing
and public Health. There are probably "pro's" as well as "cons" to this new
course but at the time I could only see "Cons".
1) The course is very NHS focused, talk of Trusts, PCT's and banding. (The
course director is a health visitor, although Anne still has the OH lead)
2) all other students are NHS staff, with the exception of the OH students
3) All other students are full time and supernumerary, and it my
understanding that this is what the NMC are also working towards for
the OH students (could be interesting, not sure how many companies would be
happy to fund an OH advisor who is supernumerary!)
4) another issue was that most of the supervisors from the other disciplines
had their Practice Teacher qualification. At the moment the NMC are happy to
accept experienced supervisors for OH but again there was an inference that
this might change at some point. (Then there will be the issue of funding
for practice teacher qualifications!!) During a discussion between the
supervisors one Health visitor felt "a PG dip in teaching wasn't enough, we
all really needed to have the PTC" (obviously that was her personal opinion
but it set up the backs of the OH supervisors, some who already had a formal
teaching qualification.)
It isn't only Southbank who are running this course, this appears to be the
course that is now being validated.(I also have an advisor doing a similar
courses at Leeds Met.)
I personally feel this is a backwards step for OH, My degree course a
Southbank was excellent, it was OH focused and designed for students who
were also working full time. I was already in OH and had been for sometime
and it helped to underpin my practice.
I have already raised my concerns verbally with Anne Harriss and the
Southbank team but I thought it might add to the debate because clearly it
will have implications for OH education in the future. I am not sure how
accessible the OH course of the future will be for OH nurses working in the
private sector (or the NHS for that matter)
Pam
-----Original Message-----
From: Helen Kirk [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 04 October 2006 07:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OCC-HEALTH] Higher level of practice
I have followed the debate with great interest. For the most part
everyone seems to be vociferously agreeing with each other about 90% of
the content.
Going straight from a primary general nursing qualification to a full-time
Masters in OH certainly doesn’t make you an expert practitioner (or even a
competent one the day you graduate). I know one person who followed this
route. Working as a nurse in a factory for 20 years doesn’t make you an
expert or even competent either. I’ve met people in this category too.
Whilst moving the goalposts can be a frustration, it’s inevitable.
Patients have an expectation that we will individually and collectively
develop our professional practice. This issue is not about collecting
qualifications although this is one way to demonstrate a commitment to
professional development.
There are real problems with OH curricula. In essence they aren’t really
designed to train nurses to meet employers’ needs. The key difference
between OH quals (as I understand them at present) and other clinical
quals in related specialties (eg occupational medicine) is that there is
no assessment of clinical competence. We wouldn’t allow a doctor with a
distance learning degree in surgery to stick a scalpel in us. We should
try to give clinical skills and acumen a more prominent place in OH
education.
Qualifications and academic achievement are important if we are to hold
our own as a specialism. As far as I’m aware we have no Professors of
Nursing (or any subject) who are also OH nurses. Only one OH nursing
academic has a PhD (which in most subjects is a given for a Senior
Lecturer post) and I’m not sure all have a Masters. I’m not aware of any
OH academic centre that is consistently publishing research in peer
reviewed journals. We must work to improve this situation if are to build
a more influential voice.
We should be ambitious for our specialism - Which nurse will succeed Carol
Black as National Director for Work and Health? She has one Doctorate and
at least two honorary ones. There are at least seven Professors/Honorary
Professors of Occupational Medicine.
Not every OH nurse needs, wants or should try to get a Masters degree, but
some should aim for a whole lot more.
Helen
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please remove this footer before replying.
For list archives and documents, go to
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/occ-health.html
FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES AND EVENTS:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/filearea.cgi?LMGT1=OCC-HEALTH
For Occupational Health jobs, go to http://OHJobs.drmaze.net
Find out about Occupational Health Nursing Education in UK at
http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6232/aohne/
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