Congratulations on your publication, on this new addition to our curriculum,聽and all the work you did to get there!聽Tell us more about what you developed and why. What are the practical implications? Who does this impact?
We wanted to improve how we teach vascular access and infusion nursing to the undergraduates at the Ingram School of Nursing. This is one area of nursing that includes putting in intravenous catheters, taking a blood sample and using central line devices, among other things. These tasks are done all the time in clinical settings, but we didn鈥檛 have a systematic way to oversee what was being taught, and how. The practice standards are changing all the time, and we knew we had to be on top of it to ensure our students are well prepared when they enter the job market.
How did you come to this work? What led you to it?
Melanie and I are both graduates of the Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN) more than 10 years ago. I never had a chance to practice installing an IV. My first try was on a live patient who cheered when I got in it. I have never been so nervous! Melanie had a similar experience and, working in the ICU, she never had much chance to practice. But the old days of 鈥渟ee one, do one, teach one鈥� are behind us. We cannot pretend that the employer will have the time or resources to do this teaching anymore. It is clearly a shared responsibility between the educational institutions and the healthcare establishments. This new curriculum is a step towards ensuring ISoN graduates are ready to provide safe, efficient care.
When we presented our ideas to the Canadian Vascular Access Association (CVAA) to nurses whose main role is to promote advancement in vascular access in their institutions, they were thrilled. These are the nurses who give on-boarding orientation to new graduates, and they were very excited that their specialization would now get the attention it deserves at the university level. We had nurses coming up to thank us.
What are the future directions for this work?
We are running a study to compare how students who are experiencing the new curriculum are faring compared to the old cohorts. We will have final results in 2020 but so far it looks like the new cohort has increased knowledge about VAIN-related topics and express more self confidence.
And when you insert an IV, studies have shown, the more confident you are, the more likely you are to get it on your first shot, which is what every patient and nurse wants.
Next steps are to role out the curriculum to the Direct-Entry Masters and BNI students.
This project could not have been possible without the help of France Paquet, a clinical practice consultant in the Nursing Directorate at the MUHC, and M茅lanie Lavoie-Tremblay, assistant professor at the ISoN. France is the president of the Montreal Chapter of CVAA and is a leading expert in VAIN. We are so lucky to have her input on everything from what to teach to what types of catheters to buy for the lab. M茅lanie guided us through the steps of establishing learning objectives and writing our research proposal. She was very instrumental in getting us funding from the 91社区 Nursing Collaborative, which聽has been instrumental in helping us get this article published and providing an RA for other research activities.