Is present-day training for nurses relevant?

Abstract

As a recent "consumer of educational services" it is nice to be asked to share my opinions about the relevance of those services. My remarks stem from my own viewpoint as a public health nurse. I do wish, however, that I had taped some of the coffee-break "gripe sessions" I enjoyed so much last year at the School of Public Health. It is said that people learn best what they perceive to be most relevant or important for themselves and future goals they may have established. After graduating as a nurse in 1964, I spent three years in the Detroit Health Department, first as a public health nurse and then as a supervisor, before enrolling in the School of Public Health Master's Program at the University of Michigan in August, 1967. During those years I had discovered an increasing interest in public health as a career. I had begun to feel that there had to be more creative and effective methods of rendering public health nursing services; and I wanted to prepare myself to move toward a position with more responsibility so I could try some of those methods. Upon completion of graduate work in June of 1968, I returned to Detroit and have since been involved in three very different kinds of work. Initially I was involved in the direct supervision of field public health nurses. Then I was asked to assist in planning the Detroit Model City Health System in conjunction with consumers and other health professionals. Most recently I have assumed the responsibilities of director of Public Health Nursing Services in the Detroit Health Department. It is within this framework that I shall assess the relevance of the preparation I received at the School of Public Health. It is within a similar context that schools of public health across the country must address the monumental task of designing curricula for a wide variety of health professionals in a whole range of positions to which each person comes with a unique set of goals to achieve and contributions to make.