Perioperative practice
Friends of African Nursing celebrating 25 years
Kate Woodhead RGN DMS shares her reflections on 25 years of delivering perioperative education through the charity, Friends of African Nursing. She provides an insight into the lessons learnt, the impact achieved and challenges encountered along the way.
Friends of African Nursing is a small UK based charity which delivers perioperative education in a variety of different African countries. The charity has run programmes in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, The Seychelles, Malawi, Rwanda, Botswana and Lesotho. We began our teaching in Uganda in 2001 and are hoping to return in 2026. Most of the students we have taught are practicing theatre staff who have not had opportunities for education on their specialised subject. There is little available on the continent. This is the gap which we filled and each of the facilitators who have accompanied us have been experienced perioperative nurses, comfortable with passing on their skills and wisdom. We have strived to make our courses effective and impactful; they evaluate well. Our vision is of an African network of nursing professionals, trained to excellence, able to apply their knowledge to safe patient care in the Operating Theatre.
As our 25th anniversary is upon us, we should
reflect on the strategies that have kept us going and some of the skills which we have, or have developed, to shape our understanding of life in well resourced healthcare systems and those less fortunate. There are lessons to learn from each other, which benefits both sides. We have a raft of exciting events planned during the year, not only to celebrate our longevity but also to ensure that there is resilience for the future. We want to feel the success of our achievements and ensure that future students are able to benefit. To date, we have educated nearly 4,000 nurses and others face to face or on-line (which was our response to the COVID crisis). From an educator’s perspective, I prefer by far the face-to-face experience and think that it is much richer for both the student and the teacher. You can see the response on a face, know if the student has grasped the concept or understood the language you have used. I remember in one country using the phrase ‘reach for the stars’ and while their English was good, there was bewilderment on the faces of
several in the room. They did not get it, so an immediate response was easy – change the phrase. An on-line delivery would not enable this change unless someone writes a note to ask you what you were talking about! However, the success of on-line was that we could appeal to many different countries and reach many more students at once. The clinical area is one that we have always
liked to visit, not only to understand where a number of the learners are practicing, but also to visualise some of their difficulties. By understanding the context as trainers, we can create a more effective and engaging learning experience, which specifically relates to the environment where the student works. It also helps to ensure that an understanding of the real-world problems which they face is part of the learning experience.
Adult learning We have been careful to embrace adult learning principles enabling nurses to undertake group work in the afternoons of our one-week programme. This allows them a break from
PowerPoint, a space to work in their own language and an opportunity to learn from each other. They feedback to the whole class, which enhances their engagement and motivation to learn. Question and Answer sessions or short sharp quizzes bring up a number of interesting topics. I remember a long discussion between a nurse from a rural hospital and colleagues from the teaching hospital about the use or otherwise of cheatles. The greatest value has been the nurses’ willingness to learn and to understand the rationale for much of their practice. We have had nurses with many decades of experience in the room and some on their first ever day following qualification – they received an induction programme like no other! We try to tap into the wisdom in the class, to enable everyone to learn from them. This goes for trainers and learners. We ask, at the beginning of the week, what objectives the students have for the experience and find out what we have to specifically cover during the training. Of course, we evaluate at the end of the week as well, which helps to ensure we know what has worked and what has not been so useful. This feeds into the next course we run. Knowles identified five principles of adult learning, which we recognise and attempt to include in all of our online modules, webinars and in face-to-face teaching.1 They are:
Self- directed learning l Adults want to make decisions about how they learn and to take charge of their own learning
Experience as a resource l Adults bring a wealth of life experiences to the learning process. These experiences should be acknowledged and utilised as a foundation for new learning, allowing learners to connect new information with what they already know.
Readiness to learn l Adults are more motivated to learn when they see the relevance of the material to their professional lives. They are ready to
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