I was one of the representatives of our school for the ADPCN or Association of Deans of the Philippines College of Nursing or is it…or something like that. In my previous post, I was ranting about how stressful my job as a EIC is. But nevertheless, it has its own benefits…one of which is this ADPCN.
So, we have to leave at 6:00am for us to arrive (late) at the convention. The weather was not in the mood for travel and thank God we were able to arrive safely. I was with topnotch students from our college which made me really proud to be with them. The trip was awesome. The food was great during our way to Manila Hotel. But the food in Manila Hotel was only delicious in the eyes.
The main topic of the convention was Universal Health Care. For me it was like a review of Primary Health Care. From everything that I have heard in that topic, all that’s going on in my mind are the concepts of PHC. I was expecting too much from the speaker and I was slightly disappointed. But she did share some interesting facts like: women from the Cordilleras do not recognize the litothomy position as a birthing position. Dr. Palaganas, the speaker, was an inspiration as she really is the “princess of primary health care”.
The second topic was the “accomplishment” reports of different nursing students from other nursing schools. Nothing pretty special about their reports since we ourselves in our college do COPAR and etc. We have our own projects which are similar to them. Nothing really special. Boring. During the third speaker (out of 4 speakers), I went out the pavilion to see what’s outside and how Manila Hotel really looks like.
The topic regarding patient safety got my attention because of it interesting scenarios like:
- A 5 year old child crushed by an oxygen tank
- A patient receiving an IV antibiotic diluted with lidocaine.
- And other stuff that makes you say “Ugh” and close your eyes imagining them
She emphasized that a hospital is supposedly a place where a patient can get treatment and be safe but the patient himself is surrounded by potentially unsafe objects.
The next topic was about IV infusion sets. Nothing special, except that the speaker is kinda young and is looking good hehe. I payed attention during this topic. It was interesting…really!
Common medication errors were discussed afterward, it was a topic similar to your pharmacology class. You know the Rs right? So that’s basically it.
The last part of the convention was an interactive session with members of the Board of Nursing.
Issues like Nurse Florence, Salary Grade 15, IMAI, and other topics were discussed. One thing I observed during this session is that most of the nursing students who stand-up in line for their questions to be answered were all trying to impress everybody. I dunno, is it just me or its really like that. Because most of the questions were answerable by Googling them or reading the news.
Another observation from the answers of the Board of Nursing is that it made them look powerless or voiceless. Most of their answers were like “we cannot do this because the government has the power…”, “we have been trying to let this move to Congress for…”, and in short… “we really couldn’t do anything about it…” stuff.
If I were brave enough (and not lazy enough to stand up front) to ask a question it would be like this:
“Do we really have someone from the government that can listen to what nurses would say?”
It would be pointless if we keep on talking the issue to ourselves without proper attention from our government.
So anyways, overall, the seminar is a bladder exercise because I peed for like 20 times since I got there.
Here are some of our pictures:
Sir Dean, Jeff, and Me
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- Sir Dean, Jeff, and Me
