I have started this time and again... So today, I'll post it even if I am not happy with it...and Anne hasn't edited my lousy typing and Brooklynese English...
Before I ramble on: While I will not be there again, you and yourt generosity will be there to assist the new students with tablets. It is only through your generosity that they are able to have these invaluable tools to learn. I am grateful for everyone of you who have made a contribution... And I am greatful to all who didn't. Tablets have been purchsed and shipped and , arrived in Guyana and wil be there for the students first day.
2021 Promises and 2020 Reflections
Covid won this year, but it wasn't a knock out! A TKO at best.
Never Say Never
No I did not go to Guyana in person this fall. Somehow I got talked into assisting online - Zoom-Zoom - with the usual Problem Based Learning Course. Full time faculty member Robert Binda really wanted to offer the courses even during the lock down. And the clincher: Roberta would do all the administration and I just had to show up and look cute! How could I turn down an offer like this?
With Roberta doing the fulltime coordination plus two full time faculty Nurse Nathleen McNeil and International Volunteer, Nurse Candy Mohan, who just began working at a hospital in Croydon, England. [She had just returned to Guyana to visit her family when Covid struck and stranded her in Guyana.] and there are four or five more part-time nurses who wished to volunteer. Wow!
When Tony Carr and I started this about a decade ago, most Guyana faculty thought we were crazy [and the vote may still be out of our mental health. It was a fad! They will be doing it the same as I am in Canada; they will be online from Georgetown.
NB: An added special thank you to my readers and benefactors. Without your gift to them of the computer tablets, this remote learning would not be possible !!!
Change is Always Present
2021 Another Term at Mercy - without me😭
The pandemic has forced me to realize - reluctantly - I am not indispensable. Yes, I knew it before; I just know it again. There will be a new gaggle of first year nurses starting at Mercy School of Nursing... I won't be there and not even on line as they feel they can return to in class teaching. So I will not be assisting with the online PBL course.
A confession: I really didn't like it... It was too flat - too edited. I really never got to know the students. So I am somewhat glad I am not doing it again... and still somewhat sad. I do know that the faculty there led by Nurses Roberta and Nathleen will lead a new group on tutors for the students to have a good learning experience.
A side note: Another girl who lived at St. Ann's will be starting in September. And like so many girls there, she has changed her name so many times It used to be Subitree... and on FaceBook she is Starr... I'll have to wait and see about what she will be called ay Mercy! Hopefully she will join a long list of St Ann's nurses who have graduated from Mercy, including the Doyen Martina Abrams.
Many years ago... |