I like to write. And I’m a good writer. My first professional publication was shortly after I completed my nursing master’s degree. In the 1980s, when we lived and traveled on our boat, I published a number of sailing articles. And there were a couple of travel articles in newspapers after we returned from our long sailing trip. My colleagues have frequently asked me to critique papers and offer an opinion. But teaching professional writing? Really? When the Vice Dean for Graduate Studies asked me if I would teach the subject this semester, I said “yes, of course” and wondered how to proceed. I was a bit disappointed that I would not get an opportunity to teach either of the syllabi that I proposed in my Fulbright application (global nursing and quality and safety in the clinical setting).
My class consists of eight female doctoral students. Five of them were in my class last semester and three are new to me. All of them wear a hijab (head covering). Two of the women are in the military and come to class in uniform. One woman is from Kuwait. She wears a veil, which she takes off in class after I close the door because there are no men present. She has been in high level positions in the Ministry of Health in her country. I won’t be surprised if she becomes the number one nurse in Kuwait after she completes her doctoral degree.
When I told the Vice Dean that I did not have my APA Publication Manual with me, she assured me that she would get me one. I wasn’t surprised when I received a photocopy. One of my biggest ethical challenges here in Jordan is the copyright violations. Everyone photocopies books. Last September the Jordan Times reported that the National Library Department was cracking down on pirated books. But the reality is that photocopying is the norm. Books are estimated to represent only 5-6% of the overall pirated items. Software, CDs and DVDs are the bigger problem. The estimated loss to the software industry in Jordan (2013) was $35 million. Only 333 cases of copyright infringement were “referred to the court” in the first 9 months of 2014. I have not seen any information on how many of those resulted in convictions or the extent of the fines. In fact, last week when I was in the university library with my Fulbright colleague, she inquired about checking out a book and was advised to “take it (a book from the stacks) to the basement to have it photocopied”. We didn’t. Maybe something was lost in translation, but I don’t think so.
My photocopied APA Manual
[click on the photo to enlarge it]
At the end of December, I attended the first induction ceremony for the Jordanian Honor Society. After one year, this society will petition Sigma Theta Tau International to become a chapter of the international nursing honor society. I was disappointed that they did not include ‘Nursing’ in the name. However, the ceremony was very nice and I am proud to be inducted as a founding member. I gave a presentation on what being a member of Sigma has meant to me since my induction at Boston College, oh so many years ago. Princess Muna was an honored guest at the induction. It seems that she rarely misses a significant nursing event; this is the fourth time that I have seen her and the second time that she has spoken to me. The newly formed chapter has already planned some activities: a book fair, where recent nursing books that are donated by professors will be sold at a low price to students, and several writing workshops. I will be doing the first presentation on each of the three days of the workshops.
Her Royal Highness Princess Muna
I have also been attending task force meetings on continuing education at the Jordanian Nursing Council (JNC). The JNC wants to have a bylaw enacted that would require all nurses to participate in some continuing education activities each year. They were shocked when I told them that some of the states in the US do not require any continuing education. Quite frankly, it shocks me too. It also makes me laugh. My first publication in a national journal was entitled “Speaking Out: The Time for Mandatory Continuing Education is Now”. That was in 1977. Some things in nursing change at a very slow pace.
In February my name was put at my office door
This past week I went with a nursing professor to the clinical setting. She is responsible for 8 students who are assigned to either the emergency room or the hemodialysis unit at Jordan University Hospital which is only a short walk from the Faculty [College] of Nursing. It was a totally different experience from how we work as clinical instructors. The students were already there when we arrived to check on them. They were not assigned to work with a specific nurse or to care for a specific patient. Dr Amani encouraged them to find a patient with whom to work. For the most part the students seemed unsure of what was expected of them. We left each site after talking to the students, with the promise that we would return in an hour or so to see if they had selected a patient and completed an assessment. In the hemodialysis unit, the students gave a presentation to the staff on what was described as a new venous access method that was beginning to be done there. The short on-line video that they showed was supplied by a medical products company, copyrighted in 2000. In all of her conversations with students, Dr Amani encouraged the students to relate assessment findings to pathophysiology and to nursing diagnosis and nursing interventions. It is clear to me that she has a broad knowledge of medical surgical nursing.
The students use the same medical surgical textbook that we use at Curry. Dr Amani assures me that they buy the book, but I have to admit that I am skeptical. Unfortunately the student handbook is only available in Arabic so I cannot compare their student policies with ours.
Although I did not see much of the hospital, what I did see was clean; but it reminded me of county or city hospitals in the 1960s – rather dingy. We passed one seating area for a clinic and my colleague commented that even though people have appointments, they will spend many hours waiting to be seen. There was a medical and a surgical emergency room. They were basically open rooms with stretchers and curtains between them. There was little room for working on the patient and even less room for someone to stay with the patient. The hemodialysis unit had modern looking dialysis machines (but I have not been in a dialysis unit at home for many years). The setting was not attractive.
One thing that always strikes me as odd is the lack of cultural relevance in pictures. In several hallways I saw pictures of a blonde woman in a white uniform with her finger to her lips. The message of quiet was easy to comprehend, but looking around at the staff and the patients and visitors, almost everyone was in a hijab. Not one person looked like the picture. I also saw this in the clip art my students used last semester in their presentations. Pictures were of blonde blue eyed children and scenes that were not at all relevant to this desert landscape.
Graduating Students Memory Autograph Books
I am hoping to have another opportunity to attend clinical where the students are assigned to a medical or surgical nursing unit as well as the skills lab and some undergraduate classes. When approached about this, faculty sound receptive, but in fact they seem hesitant to actually set a date for me to be there. I don’t want to miss these opportunities, but it is a fine line between being too insistent and being respectful of their feelings.
January Graduates with Their Memory Books
So, for my nursing colleagues, I hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences here. For those of you who are not interested in the hospital, the next post should be more interesting. We are going to Dubai next week so in two weeks I plan to write about our travels there.
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