Posts Tagged ‘Faculty of Nursing and Health’

Nurses on mission

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Celebrate ethnic diversity

Staff members and students highlighted their diverse ethnicity but shared mission during International Nurses Day celebrations on Avondale College of Higher Education’s Sydney campus, May 13.

Students Justus Cana, Denise Wilson, Geena Burton, Daniel Siv celebrate International Nurses Day.
Credit: Tamera Gosling.

Students stuck dots on a world map projected onto a wall during morning tea to show the country of their birth—39 countries are represented across the three years of the Bachelor of Nursing degree at Avondale—and the country in which they intended to work after graduation.

Janine Croker also spoke about her goal of completing her education and then returning to the developing world to help address wound care needs. The mature age first-year student, who had previously studied nursing but never completed the degree, has completed mission trips, particularly to countries in Asia.

The students then watched two videos, one promoting the international charity Mercy Ships, showing the joy of nursing overseas in developing countries.

Chaplain Dr Drene Somasundram offered a prayer for all nurses, particularly alumni serving in Australia and around the world and students completing their training.

Nursing has much in common with mission service. “It’s meeting a felt need,” says lecturer Sonja Dawson. “You earn the right to share the gospel when you help someone by showing care and compassion.”

Sonja and colleague Kerry Miller lead teams of students on clinical learning experiences at Atoifi Adventist Hospital on Malaita in the Solomon Islands—a team visits again in October this year. The trip serves as an introduction to medical-focused mission. Other trips involving nursing students include those organised by student club One Mission to Bangladesh and to Vietnam, the latter in partnership with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Australia.

International Nurses Day is held on May 12 each year, the anniversary of modern nursing founder Florence Nightingale’s birth. It honours nurses and the contribution they make to society. The International Council of Nurses has celebrated the day since 1965. Its theme for this year: Closing the Gap, which addresses the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women by 2015.

Atoifi and me

Thursday, October 11, 2012

The privilege of mission-minded nursing

Erin Raethel
Bachelor of Nursing student
Avondale College of Higher Education

Thirteen nauseating hours in a seemingly toy-sized boat. This is how eight of my classmates, our lecturer and I travel from Guadalcanal to Atoifi Adventist Hospital on Malaita in the Solomon Islands. The purpose of the two-week trip (July 3-17): to serve as a clinical learning experience in a developing country and as an introduction to medical-focused mission.

We fly to the Solomons with more than 170 kilograms of excess luggage—alcohol wipes, catheters, dressings, hymnals, paediatric wall stickers, shower curtains, stationary and wall clocks. The students in the hospital’s School of Nursing are grateful for the supplies and distribute them on the wards for immediate use. They’re resourceful, too: gauze and cotton wool double as feminine hygiene pads and cone-shaped fetoscopes detect the foetal heart rate like an ultrasound.

The only other expatriates at Atoifi are a Peruvian couple, Dr Elma and his wife, Angelica, a pharmacist. Dr Elma performs surgery only when the village generator is operating—9.00 AM-12.00 PM and 6.00 PM-9.00 PM. Outside of these hours, nursing procedures are conducted near windows or by torchlight.

Dressed in scrubs with Crocs on our feet, we nurse patients who’ve fallen out of coconut trees, contracted malaria or tuberculosis or given birth.

The local women prepare a regular feast for us—cassava, cucumber, pawpaw, tuna and watercress feature. We also begin drinking coconut milk like we drink water.

The continuous rain does little to dampen our spirits or drown out the harmonious voices singing praises at morning worships. Even on the wards, the nurses begin their day by having worship with the patients. Atoifi survives on prayer.

To nurse in a developing country is a challenge, professionally and personally—to witness how true healing comes from God, not from medicine. To nurse the vulnerable—whether here in Australia or overseas—back to health is a privilege.

Atoifi again

Monday, July 2, 2012

Faculty fundraising update

A partnership between Atoifi Adventist Hospital and Avondale will see a Faculty of Nursing and Health team return to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for a third consecutive year. Here is an update of the team’s fundraising and projects.

This graph shows the fundraising target and actual of the Faculty of Nursing and Health service learning trip to Atoifi.

Atoifi Adventist Hospital
Target: $2,500. Actual: $6,500.

Education and health care are the foci of this trip. The team will serve in the community and on the wards and teach in the School of Nursing.

Concise

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

“Model” students impress

Credit: David Dobias.

Gideon Kang, Adam Tonkin, Bekezela Sibanda, Laufilitoga Ah You, Brian Lauratet and Joseph Mapour (pictured, left to right) are the first Avondale College students joining a United States-based ministry taking Seventh-day Adventists from developed countries to evangelise in developing countries.

They may not be the last.

ShareHim’s David Dobias describes the six as “model” students—he managed the group in Zimbabwe.

“I was blessed and impressed.” So impressed—3000 people attended the students’ meetings; 250 were baptised—David wants to visit. “They are a credit to your school,” he writes. “Keep on doing what you have done with these fine young men.”

Destination Solomons for mission-minded nurses

Credit: Ann Stafford.

Lecturer Sonja Frischknecht (pictured, left) and these final-year nursing students leave tomorrow for Atoifi Adventist Hospital in the Solomon Islands.

They’ll spend two weeks there.

Sonja will teach at the nursing school and with the students teach primary health care to members of the community and work in the hospital.

On her return, she’ll write a thesis for a master’s about the effectiveness of clinical learning experiences for undergraduate nurses in developing countries. Sonja hopes the degree may enable other nursing students to complete mission trips as part of their study.