Saturday, March 14, 2009

Today was the leadership seminar at Symbiosis. The students were too busy with the details of the day, so they did not have time to organize dressing me in a saree. They felt bad and promised to bring me a saree before I leave India.

The day was interesting. I was the second speaker following some introduction remarks by the Dean of Health Science. There were about 150 people attending the conference - 75 students, about 50 military nurses, and 25 community nurse administrators.

The best speaker was the Dean of the Law College. She had done a lot of research on nursing for her presentation. She spoke about how there is no nursing code of professional ethics in India. There is no professional nursing association such as the American Nursing Association. There are no local nursing organizations. I was most surprised at the fact that nurses can never be sued for anything, because they are merely considered to be an extension of the doctors. For example, even if a nurse gives the wrong medication, the doctor will be sued. The nurse has no autonomy at all. There are a few nursing unions in the government hospitals, but they are really more like collective bargaining units for all hospital employees including the nurses as well as all of the other employees. Each of these units is specific to one hospital and never represent more than one hospital.

I was surprised that nursing is not even considered to be a profession here, but more like a job. No wonder the students do not wish to go into nursing as a profession, because it is not a recognized profession. I'm not sure what it will take to move nurses to organize and gain respect in India. As long as they see themselves as merely an extension of doctors, then they will remain passive and view themselves as not responsible for their actions. The lawyer spoke about how US nurses are advised to have malpractice insurance, but this concept is foreign here because they can't be sued.

Also I learned that Indian nurses are not required to have any continuing education units -ever. Once they pass the national boards, they are a nurse for life. They do not ever have to renew their license. They do not ever pay any money again for their lincense. Therefore, they are never required to update their skills or to stay current with their nursing skills. Another nurse spoke at length about this issue in her presentation. She is the Director of Nursing and she said that new graduates are not properly trained and need immediate retraining, but older nurses also need lots of training. Although her presentation was informative, it was also very negative. You could tell that she was very frustrated.

The rest of the day was interesting. I was invited by two Directors of Nursing to come and give talks at their hospitals. I'm always willing to give community talks, because I learn so much from the audience.