Featured Nurse: Nurse Educator

Nowadays, there a lot of nurses who are unemployed and there are those who recently passed the board examination that adds to this number. Many of them want to be employed in hospitals and clinics, which our colleagues see as the only option to practice their profession.

However, there are a lot of non-hospital based, nursing-related works to venture into. These include being an educator, a medical representative, a BPO agent, a project officer, in the armed forces, in the police force and a whole lot more.

Let me share with you the story of my friend.

She earned her degree at San Juan de Dios Educational Foundation, Inc – College in 2009 and the following year, she passed the Philippine Nurse Licensure Examination with a very admiring rating of 83.80%.

She currently holds a number of positions in the Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates International Inc. (AYNLA). She is one of the Board of Trustees, the Department Secretary for Media and Publication and the Editor in Chief of Amuma Nurse Magazine of the Alliance. She writes a blog Codswallop, particularly on sexual reproductive health and social issues that happen in our country. She is none other than Nurse Janina Santos, a registered nurse, an advocate and an instructor.

Why nursing?

Just like most of our colleagues, she was “forced” by her parents. According to her, she wanted to become a journalist, but that was the time media people were being abducted by terrorist groups in Mindanao.

“I took up Nursing because another career path I was looking at was forensic pathology and I can get training for that abroad. Nursing would have been my doorway to that course.” she said.

Her Work and Experience

Photo Credit: www.denes.suffolk.sch.uk 

Even though she got a very impressive board rating, she never worked as a nurse. Instead she worked as an IELTS instructor in different review centers within the Metro.

“I belong to the batch of nurses from the lower economic class. This meant that I needed to earn money pronto because of my pressing financial responsibilities at home. Instead of going into nursing, I made use of my slightly superior language skills and taught college Korean students English instead. I was lucky I had something else I can capitalize on to earn money. A lot of nursing grads did not have the option I did.” she explained.

It was the middle of the volunteerism issues when she passed the board examination. Just like other nurses, Janina never wanted to pay required fees in order to get a slots and practice. She believed that she graduated and passed the board to be paid for her services, not the other way around.

On Being an IELTS Instructor

“People forget the primary role of the nurse: to be agents of promotion of health and prevention of diseases, and this is done primarily through health teaching.”

Nurse Janina giving her lecture about IELTS

Having said that, nurses’ main role is health promotion and disease prevention; the word educator comes in. Nurses educate people on their holistic care needs.

 “Nurses, then, are actually teachers as well, regardless of what you teach – whether it is safe sex practices or Grammar – the skills you need to be effective are the same. My other work is as an advocate. I write about social issues, mostly those that concern women. I immerse myself on reproductive health and rights issues.”

Janina also educate people on safe practices and giving options through information. She doesn’t get paid for this job but according to her it’s still a job and quite related to nursing.

You know that a lot of our colleagues are not employed, what can you say to them to be employed like you as an instructor?

“The first thing is expertise. You can't just decide to teach something if you have no idea what you're teaching. To be a competent teacher means you know the ins-and-outs of your craft. You won't want a mediocre English teacher, especially in the IELTS examination, where you need to spend at least 15K for review and test, would you?

Also, teaching is not just spewing a lot of facts. Sure, you know the difference between present tense, past tense, and present perfect tense, but if you are unable to simplify the concept, then I don't think you'd be much of a teacher.”

Nurses, like us are so lucky that we were given the chance to know the basics of teaching in one of our subjects in college, the teaching strategies. Memorizing your lecture is not enough, concepts must be known to you by heart; because in the end, understanding of students depends on what you said from your lecture.

On Being an Advocate

They said that being a nurse, you must be in the hospital or clinic to work. What can you say about this?

“It does not make you less of a nurse if you’re not in the hospital. I raise my middle finger to those who say that your job is not your definition – like Gestalt, you are more than the sum of your parts. A nurse, regardless of the setting or the nature of the job, will always be a nurse. The caring nature and the evidence-based practice are not diminished whatsoever by working outside the clinical field. You ARE a nurse.”

“The beautiful thing about nursing is that it grounded in education. It goes both ways - nursing is evidence-based practice, so nurses must be educated, and at the same time, nurses must also educate in order to fulfill their roles well.” , she added.

Health education is important especially to people who have no idea on their health care needs and to people who seeks medical attention on the very last minute, which unfortunately most Filipinos are doing. As nurses, we need to educate them on how to improve their lifestyles to prevent illnesses, educate them on getting better, and enlighten them that promotion of health and prevention of disease is better than cure.

Open-mindedness is one of the qualities that a person must have if s/he wishes to be an advocate. But how does an advocate work?

In advocacy work, advocates acts as educators to talk about health and social issues affecting the lives of every Juan.

Photo credit: magazine.nursing.jhu.edu

“Nurses who are in the advocacy also act as educators. Nurse advocates embed themselves on issues on health, the health care system, and the multifaceted variables that affect these. Such knowledge available to nurse advocates is imparted to those who know less but must be informed. To be an educator - and to be a nurse, for that matter - is not bounded by place nor avenue. I believe you can be a nurse and an educator anywhere. There are no boundaries to nursing and education.”

“Nurses are not just care-givers – they are also educators and client advocates. We often forget the diverse role of the nurse in the health care system in favor of traditional views and this should not be so, because the myopic manner in which people tag nurses as “pang ospital lang” is an insult to the powers and skills of nurses to catalyze improvement in health care.”, she said.  

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