President's Message
The PNA of Northern California Fall 2009 Educational Conference is all about Honoring Our Tradi-tion, Advancing our Future. What is nursing? Wikipedia defines nursing as a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and commu-nities so they may attain, main-tain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from birth to the end of life.
Nursing has evolved. Florence Nightingale, considered the pioneer of modern nurses, reformed the British military health care system. It was during the Crimean War when she devised a way to study the incidence of preventable deaths in the military. Nightingale was an innovator in the collection, interpreta-tion, and tabulation of descriptive statistics. Her work lead to improvements in medical and surgical practices. She reformed environmental and patient hygiene stan-dards that resulted in the decline of mortality rates.
Nursing all over the world has progressed. The country of New Zealand was the first to regulate nurses nationally. Ellen Dougherty, a New Zealander, was the first regis-tered nurse in the world. In 1903 North Carolina was the first state to pass the nursing licensure law. In California, an organization called ―Men in Nursing‖ encourages men to consider a nursing career. With the current shortage of nurses globally, nurses around the world are enrolled in
academic education.
At the July 2009 Philippine Nurses Association of Amer-ica (PNAA) National Conference in Maryland, Balti-more, the first Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) Forum was held. The APN survey conducted prior to the forum showed that the majority of nurses were females with many having 5-12 years of APN experience. Of those who responded, 21 had Nurse Practitioner degrees, four were Clinical Nurse Specialists, and one had a doctorate degree. Of the total number of APN respondents, the ma-jority completed their master‘s degree in the U.S.
One national program, the Versant RN Residency, fur-thers education past graduation. This is now availablein 70 hospitals . The Versant pairs new nurses with more experienced nurses who serve as preceptors, coaches, trainers. This RN residency program is on the move as recent graduates, with little or no experience, want more training after nursing school. They want to be empowered as decision makers.
As nurses we look at the patient as a whole, not as a person with a disease. Our focus has always been on patient care - past, present, and future. Nurses will al-ways be there looking out for their patients‘ needs. Because I believe that happy patients lead to happy nurses.
Nursing has evolved. Florence Nightingale, considered the pioneer of modern nurses, reformed the British military health care system. It was during the Crimean War when she devised a way to study the incidence of preventable deaths in the military. Nightingale was an innovator in the collection, interpreta-tion, and tabulation of descriptive statistics. Her work lead to improvements in medical and surgical practices. She reformed environmental and patient hygiene stan-dards that resulted in the decline of mortality rates.
Nursing all over the world has progressed. The country of New Zealand was the first to regulate nurses nationally. Ellen Dougherty, a New Zealander, was the first regis-tered nurse in the world. In 1903 North Carolina was the first state to pass the nursing licensure law. In California, an organization called ―Men in Nursing‖ encourages men to consider a nursing career. With the current shortage of nurses globally, nurses around the world are enrolled in
academic education.
At the July 2009 Philippine Nurses Association of Amer-ica (PNAA) National Conference in Maryland, Balti-more, the first Advanced Practice Nurse (APN) Forum was held. The APN survey conducted prior to the forum showed that the majority of nurses were females with many having 5-12 years of APN experience. Of those who responded, 21 had Nurse Practitioner degrees, four were Clinical Nurse Specialists, and one had a doctorate degree. Of the total number of APN respondents, the ma-jority completed their master‘s degree in the U.S.
One national program, the Versant RN Residency, fur-thers education past graduation. This is now availablein 70 hospitals . The Versant pairs new nurses with more experienced nurses who serve as preceptors, coaches, trainers. This RN residency program is on the move as recent graduates, with little or no experience, want more training after nursing school. They want to be empowered as decision makers.
As nurses we look at the patient as a whole, not as a person with a disease. Our focus has always been on patient care - past, present, and future. Nurses will al-ways be there looking out for their patients‘ needs. Because I believe that happy patients lead to happy nurses.
Cherina V. Tinio, RN MSN CNSHonoring our Tradition, Advancing our Future
