Friends and Staff - Old and New, a Farm ----------------------------- and Graduating YES! Nursing Students

Old In More Ways Than One
Dr. Tony Carr has returned to Guyana after a six year absence.   It is great to have him here.   Tony and I created the PBL pages that we are still using today and with great success.  Before that we often had those days as a teacher when you felt you were the worst teacher in the world or more likely, your students were.   Our traditional ways of teaching were not effective in Guyana.   So we decided to steal McMaster Medical School's model, Problem Based Learning, and we have never regretted it.
 

Tony's first night in GT and he needed to go to Taju's, 
where he had a huge cup of ice cream before supper.

Yesterday, I was chatting with one of the first year students about how they felt the PBL course was coming.  She replied,  "It is great.  Your course is the first one that has asked and listened to us about what we think ...."   And then she went on to complain that there is too much work ..... so I'll just remember the first part.

Tony has come down principally to teach and supervise the psychiatry residents in the new Master of Medicine - Psychiatry that began late last year.    He brings the same enthusiasm that he had a decade ago.   And since he is here he wants to get involved with the nurses here at Mercy.  So, with enormous reluctance,  I'll let him use my classes during the week and I will be left with nothing to do .....😢😢😢😂😂😂.   Tony will be here for three weeks and since he never gives me the last word, I am sure he'll replace my blogging for a week. [Repeat emojis]

Another Old, But Not Nearly as Old, Friend

Donna Joy Tai, has been a Scarboro Fathers lay volunteer for 6 years, and I have known her all those years.   She retired as a travel agent in Montreal to do something with her life...   She has invested herself in the Boys Home, John Bosco, and the parish there in Plaisance.  She once sold me $1,000 worth of fair tickets when she knew I couldn't go that day .....  so "Give them to Rashleigh and Gregory" -- very persuasive!  She used to lead a weekly hymn/song session at Mercy Hospital, and  has continued at the new Mercy Resident Care facility on Pere Street.  She is quite involved with the diocesan committee on justice and human rights, and I am sure she is involved in other activities but I don't want to suggest she is working harder than I am .....

On a sad note and symbolic of out times, the Scarboro Fathers need to cancel their support of the Lay Missionary programme for financial reasons.  So Donna and her colleague, Bev Trach, will be leaving permanently at the end of the year.  I find it incomprehensible that as North American societies we have billions for war and self-protection and nothing for those who teach love and compassion.    Yes, I know she comes with her missionary baggage, but that has to be way better than wiping the burning napalm off your child's skin.    Maybe our children's children will shape a world we can only dream of.

And a New Friend

More accurate pictures next week

How new? I hear you asking.   I haven't even met her yet!  We have very lax recruiting criteria here:  if you have enthusiasm, Welcome.  (I'm glad Sister Sheila Walsh used those same lax standards with me 15 years ago!) And Tracy Meeker does have eagerness as so far she has not said no to any request to teach.  Tracy only found out about this work in Guyana in August and a couple of weeks ago decided to come .  She will arrive on Sunday for eight days.  Unless she starts saying no at the end of her time here, I'll get her to write a blog.

Tracy is an "advanced practice" nurse from the Faculty of Nursing, University of Ottawa.  She has her expertise in Mental Health and is currently the manager of a Shared Care Mental Health team at Ottawa Hospital, a small team working with usually very complex presentations but people who are not acutely ill.  She is also a clinical instructor and a guest lecturer for the University of Ottawa Nursing programme.   (More next week.)   

I have had housekeeping clean up the flat, asked laundry to wash all the towels and linens, warned the kitchen of both Tony's and Tracey's presence.   I had planned on Tony staying here with us, but after he got to Project Dawn, he wrote, "I walk through the guarded locked gates, into this block building, and into a different world.  Neat, painted and tiled corridors, beautiful hardwood floor in HUGE living-room, electronic keys, my own palatial room with working window-blinds which dwarfs the two double-beds, en-suite bathroom, wifi, nice ladies Samantha and Rima who can fix anything, all clean and shiny and functioning!!"  So, as the old saying goes, and it looks like it is still  true, "After they've seen Paris, how can you keep them even in my 'executive volunteer suite'?"

Here's a quiz about the uniqueness of my flat.  (I should have a prize for the first person to identify it, but I don't have any prizes.   And before I get this posted, Tracy will already be on the plane .....)

The answer will come "from above".

Nursing at Mercy and in Guyana

Last year, it was discovered that some students had paid to receive the questions and answers from members of the Guyana Nursing Council.   So in true Guyanese style, instead to trying to figure out who cheated and who sold the answers, everyone was forced to do a retake ..... and not only that, the whole style of the exam was changed and drawn up by the Department of Education.  So a huge percentage of student nurses failed the final exam. .... and they had to wait almost a year to retake.    The School couldn't cope with all the students, so they had to fend for themselves, working at call centres, cooks, restaurants, etc.  So now, that group and the present crop of students will be writing exams this Tuesday.   

As you would expect from me, I wrote to everyone including the Minister of Public Health:

I do not think there has been a year when there wasn’t some “talk” about leaks from the exam.   The only difference this year is that the Council got caught adding a little to their own pockets.

I really believe it is unethical to have only the students punished when it is the lack of control from the Council.  There needs to be balance in order to be fair.   This is especially true, as the “leakee” Council members bear the prime responsibility for the problem.  

The whole Council needs to resign… and a new leadership elected by all Guyana nurses with a mandate to bring Guyana Nursing into full accreditation in the Caribbean.   There is no redemption for the present Council members… They have been given more than enough time to move towards the 19^th century!     The whole concept of the present four days of exams is crazy ..… It is so archaic and of very questionable value for the evaluation on nursing knowledge and skills.  The present style of the exam has no integrity… that is certainly one of the reasons the rest of the world has little respect for nursing education in Guyana.  The exam is highly subjective with no real testing for validity and reliability.

I believe unless this opportunity is not used for significant reform, then you can forget Caribbean respect for a decade.  As well, if your long term goals is for these new nurses to feel that they are welcome in Guyana to practice nursing, then screwing them around isn't going to help and making them the victims of the nursing council’s lack of integrity.   They will remember how you sacrificed them for your immediate solution.  Really, why stay in Guyana or even why stay in nursing here.

 With this in mind, I offer my suggestions:  There are techniques to determine who cheated on the exam and hold them accountable.  At a minimum, require these students to re-write.  Students deserve to be considered innocent, unless you have proof of their guilt.   

So far no one has responded to my letters, except personal friends. Do you think I should give up waiting for a response?  Nor have there been any conclusions about the parties responsible for leaking the answers; nor has the Nursing Council been overhauled.

However, for the last month the present seniors and for the last two weeks the previous seniors have been in school full time.  Crowded is too nice a word to describe the situation.    The PBL small groups are meeting all over, including my flat.    And the crowding has only increased the heat.. The tearful, sweating students have made me let them have two fans from my flat ....   (I hope I get some points in the afterlife for this!)

We will have a "double" Massive Prayer Service on Monday to show our support for these nurses taking their exam ..... and (in case you are RC) there will be enough petitions to convince God to be merciful.  My favourite Saint for exams was Joseph Cupertino...   When being examined for the priesthood, he was not good with the books and so only knew one answer -- and guess what?   That was the question the examiner asked him.  I needed him on my side for some courses.   The students have studied and the older ones have persevered to keep their dream of being a nurse alive...   How could a saint named Joseph not intervene for students from Saint Joseph's!

Speaking of Old - Mercy Day

Most of the Long Term Service Awardees

Last year I got over the shock of seeing some of my former students get their ten year service awards..  but I had forgotten...  So when Tracy Allen got her ten year pin - I questioned Human Resources' counting... it's true.. 

Tracy is now on  Nursing Faculty , part time.

And the five year crowd seems like they were First Year yesterday ....  There are other old students who are still working in Guyana at almost every health care facility in the country ..... and this is a good thing for Guyana.    Anecdotally, it does seem that the exodus of nurses has slowed from a decade or so ago -- and there is still way more Guyana needs to do to keep its skilled nurses, like salary raises, eh?

Martina, Mishea, Alicia and Bibi

Mashun

You Need to Have Vision - Home in the Country

Huge Back Yard - Tilapia pond front

Front of Home 

Back of Home

My friend, Taju, is building a home outside the city and across the river in a small town of Bagotville.  He has always dreamed of having a farm and raising chickens, fish (tilapia), and even pigs.  (He's a liberal Muslim).   He is doing almost all the work himself except for some skilled construction stuff. He has dug by hand the big fish pond -- now really a dirt hole.   When he walked me around last Sunday, as he was talking you could see he had finished everything in his mind.  He works at the farm 6 days a week after starting his day at 4:30am delivering food to the food truck outside the Public Hospital, shopping for supplies and food for the Princess Kitchen,  and sometime after lunch is finished, he heads across to work for several hours before returning at dark to help with the restaurant on Durban.   

I am afraid that I didn't have that much vision..   or energy.   My consciousness is framed by lawns, level ground and sculptured gardens .....  and certainly not by a neighbouring pond with huge alligators -- he has killed one already.   (I tried to convince Taju to make friends with the O'Connor like him, my brother Tony who is a real alligator whisperer.)  

In a compliment to me, he said that he marks his work by a year from where he was last year when I visited Guyana.       And last year this property was bush with no cleared areas or even a bridge...  The neighbours on either side could not even see through the bush to each other. That is progress.   However, I did have to ask myself:  What the hell did I do in that year?  

Enough... probably more than enough for the week.  Thanks for reading with me.

And a welcome to his new home with a Sunday Morning Beer!