Health Care Providers in War and Armed Conflict: Operational and Educational Challenges in International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions, Part I. Historical Perspective.

Since 1945, the reason for humanitarian crises and the way in which the world responds to them has dramatically changed every 10 to 15 years or less. Planning, response, and recovery for these tragic events have often been ad hoc, inconsistent, and insufficient, largely because of the complexity of global humanitarian demands and their corresponding response system capabilities. This historical perspective chronicles the transformation of war and armed conflicts from the Cold War to today, emphasizing the impact these events have had on humanitarian professionals and their struggle to adapt to increasing humanitarian, operational, and political challenges. An unprecedented independent United Nations-World Health Organization decision in the Battle for Mosul in Iraq to deploy to combat zones emergency medical teams unprepared in the skills of decades-tested war and armed conflict preparation and response afforded to health care providers and dictated by International Humanitarian Law and Geneva Convention protections has abruptly challenged future decision-making and deployments. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:109-115).

Health Care Providers in War and Armed Conflict: Operational and Educational Challenges in International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions, Part II. Educational and Training Initiatives.

ABSTRACTNo discipline has been impacted more by war and armed conflict than health care has. Health systems and health care providers are often the first victims, suffering increasingly heinous acts that cripple the essential health delivery and public health infrastructure necessary for the protection of civilian and military victims of the state at war. This commentary argues that current instructional opportunities to prepare health care providers fall short in both content and preparation, especially in those operational skill sets necessary to manage multiple challenges, threats, and violations under international humanitarian law and to perform triage management in a resource-poor medical setting. Utilizing a historical framework, the commentary addresses the transformation of the education and training of humanitarian health professionals from the Cold War to today followed by recommendations for the future. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:383-396).

Quality and safety education for nurses clinical evaluation tool.

An efficient evaluation tool is essential when measuring the clinical performance of undergraduate nursing students. It is also important that this evaluation tool accurately assess the critical competencies that students must demonstrate in the clinical setting. The tool should be unambiguous, succinct, and adaptable to a wide variety of clinical experiences and faculty. As part of a curriculum improvement initiative for their baccalaureate nursing program, the nursing faculty teaching in a 4-year undergraduate program identified the need for the development of a new clinical performance evaluation tool for the evaluation of undergraduate nursing students in each clinical placement. The resultant tool more accurately appraised clinical capabilities by focusing on quality and safety in health care, and it permitted the evaluation of critical thinking skills and team communication.