Experiences of student nurses regarding the bursary system in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa

Background: During 2010, the South African nursing education system was restructured, changing student nurses from having supernumerary status to being bursary holders. Changes with the introduction of this new bursary system included institutional factors and benefits that could be removed from the students, potentially hampering students' sense of belonging.Aim: This study aimed to describe the experiences of students receiving bursaries in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province and to make recommendations for improving the system to bursary providers, educational institutions and practical settings based on these students' experiences of the bursary system.Setting: The experiences of student nurses regarding the bursary system are described within a specified setting comprising two nursing campuses in KZN.Method: A qualitative study design was used and seven focus group interviews were conducted with purposively selected participants, representing the target population of first-, second- and third-year male and female nursing students registered for the Diploma in Nursing (General, Psychiatric, Community) and Midwifery.Results: Two main themes and eight subthemes were identified. The findings indicated that some of the bursary system's experiences were negative as opposed to students having supernumerary status. These experiences had negative socio-economic, psychological, clinical, academic and family impacts. Many concerns related to staff members' attitudes, shortages of nurses and service demands during students' clinical practice assignments.Conclusions: The bursary system was not viewed as being beneficial to students as they did not receive all the benefits from being bursary holders. Support in clinical and academic areas was lacking as they were considered to be employees during their clinical assignments. There is an urgent need to review the bursary system

An educational international partnership responding to local needs: process evaluation of the Brazil FAIMER Regional Institute

INTRODUCTION: The Brazilian public health system requires competent professionals sensitive to the needs of the population. The Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) provides a two-year faculty development programme for health professions educators, aiming to build leadership in education to improve health. A partnership with governmental initiatives and FAIMER was established for meeting these needs. This paper describes the initial process evaluation results of the Brazilian FAIMER Institute Fellowship (FAIMER BR). METHODS: Data were analysed for the classes 2007-2010 regarding: application processes; innovation project themes; retrospective post-pre self-ratings of knowledge acquisition; and professional development portfolios. RESULTS: Seventeen of 26 Brazilian states were represented among 98 Fellows, predominantly from public medical schools (75.5%) and schools awarded Ministry of Health grants to align education with public health services (89.8%). One-third (n = 32) of Fellows' innovation projects were related to these grants. Significant increases occurred in all topic subscales on self-report of knowledge acquisition (effect sizes, 1.21-2.77). In the follow up questionnaire, 63% of Fellows reported that their projects were incorporated into the curriculum or institutional policies. The majority reported that the programme deepened their knowledge (98%), provided new ideas about medical education (90%) and provided skills for conflict management (63%). One-half of the Fellows reported sustained benefits from the programme listserv and other communications, including breadth of expertise, establishment of research collaboration and receiving emotional support. CONCLUSION: Contributors to initial programme success included alignment of curriculum with governmental initiatives, curriculum design merging educational technology, leadership and management skills and central role of an innovation educational project responding to local needs.

Providing a setup and opportunities for better training of postdoctoral research fellows in an academic environment.

Thousands of young researchers come from different parts of the world every year to take up postdoctoral (postdoc) research fellowship positions in the developed countries. In the US alone, there were 48,601 postdocs in the year 2005 working in different labs in the fields of science, health and engineering. Many pursue this option for lack of other alternatives. Expectedly, these individuals face a lot of difficulties in making this transition from being a student to becoming an employee of an institution. Many institutions are prepared to make this transition and period of stay easy for their fellows while others are not equipped at all. The presence of a postdoc office (established by an institution) or an association (formed by the fellows) can be of immense help to postdocs. Additionally, the availability of institutional professional development and leadership programs can also help to nurture and polish postdoc fellows into future faculty members and valuable members of the community at large. To name a few, these professional development programs can focus on communication and presentation skills, medical education, teaching and learning, bioethics and mentorship. There is an urgent need to address some or all of these issues so that better training environment and opportunities are available to this group of postdoc fellows.