NURSING EDUCATION
In February 2015, Karen Lasater and Lynn Blackburn of the University of Tennessee College of Nursing traveled to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to help educate nurses at the new St Philip's Nursing School and the NUST Masters Midwifery Program.
Karen gave didactic lectures through the World Health Organization HINARI electronic library access, as well as introduced a cataloguing system for hundreds of nursing and medical textbooks donated from the medical community of Knoxville, Tennessee and the American Journal of Nursing. Nurses in Bulawayo now have access to “Librarything,” a web-based software program that allows nurses to search for available textbooks in the new St. Philip's Nursing School library. Thanks to Shawn at the American Journal of Nursing and to Martha Earl at UT Medical Center Library who provided such excellent advice to the team!
Lynn gave extensive lectures to the NUST Masters Midwifery program students. She organized live video lectures from the UT College of Nursing in Knoxville, Tennessee to the NUST Masters Midwifery Program students in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. With Dr Jenny Edge and Sister Lieske Wegelin of South Africa, Lynn and Karen helped with the two-day seminar on Women's Breast Health to 120 nurses from hospitals and clinics all over Matabeleland. This was organized by Sister Maureen Jamieson, Sister Samboko, and Sister Mandhiza.
This was a great initial step in our aim to address women's health needs in Matabeleland. Thanks to Dean Vickie Niederhauser for her help in facilitating and funding this project!
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In the news: read more about this nursing collaboration here.
