Monday, April 16, 2007 New Nightingales By Mayette Q. Tabada
BEFORE the American dream, there was the yearning to serve.
Opening 34 sections (at 50 students per section) for first-year nursing students enrolled at two of its campuses in schoolyear 2006, the University of Cebu (UC) reaps from the Filipino dream to take nursing as a stepping stone for an overseas job and upward mobility.
But asked to say what distinguishes the UC College of Nursing from the more than 20 nursing schools that have mushroomed in Central Visayas, nursing deans Ramillita Romano and Helen Estrella, of the Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue and Banilad campuses respectively, distill the difference in two words: service and competence.
For this reason, the university does not offer a special program for second-coursers, such as doctors retraining to be nurses. Romano says that no matter the nature and length of their previous work, second-coursers take the regular four-year curriculum, with its emphasis on “the valuing and caring component in both the general education and professional/nursing subjects.”
To maintain their Commission on Higher Education (Ched)-recognized status as “one of the top four nursing schools in Cebu,” based on their percentage of passers in the licensure exam, Estrella points out that a full-time faculty adviser is assigned to guide and monitor every batch from first year up to final year, including the 30-day preparation for the review.
Although Ched requires only one tertiary hospital for a hospital-based nursing program, UC has tie-ups with two: the 650-bed Chong Hua Hospital and the 250-bed Visayan Community Medical Center.
The UC College of Nursing counts 28 affiliating agencies, the deans reveal. These public and private hospitals, lying-in clinics, health centers and special facilities “provide related learning opportunities for the students to develop the work ethics and discipline that set apart the UC training,” adds Estrella.
The Banilad campus has three “well-equipped skills laboratories;” the Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue campus, two. Romano points out that the faculty, led by senior instructors with an average of 15 years of actual experience in nursing and education, uses these “mock hospitals” to “raise the students’ level of beginning skills in basic nursing procedure,” which will be honed further under the supervision of clinical instructors and the medical staff in the based hospitals.
UC president Augusto Go, who aims to provide affordable education without compromising quality, has a standing incentive to award a brand-new car to a nursing board topnotcher, with a full refund of tuition fees to those landing in the top 10, reveal the deans.
On Apr. 14, the UC president and chancellor, Ms. Candice Gotianuy, will announce incentives to any of its 2006 alumni who will voluntarily retake the board exam.
The intensity and discipline of training, overlaid with a mission to serve—this is UC’s promise for its nursing students. It’s a challenge Florence Nightingale, pioneer of modern nursing, would have affirmed.
