I've been a bit quiet on the blog for a couple of reasons - returning from my trip to Australia and catching up, thinking about how best to engage through the blog with the wider academic community, and considering what I want to say about what I have been reading recently regarding compassion and education.
It seems to me that most commentators disconnect compassion from education. It is almost as if it is (probably) ok to educate nurses to degree level, but we mustn't forget about compassion (the implication for me is that compassion and education are two separate entities). I can't think of any educator that I know who would not consider that compassion/caring/attitudes/professional values etc etc were not an integral part of the degree level education that we offer students. I firmly believe that compassion should be part of the overall academic development of a student - graduate attributes reflect certain characteristics and for nursing it seems absolutely appropriate that we name this as something that we aspire to with all our graduates. I fully appreciate that nursing students need to have certain inherent characteristics. But I also strongly believe that a good education (in the university alongside practice) can assist students to develop compassion as part of an overall evidence-based approach to working with patients and others in practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment