Building Community Health Nursing in the People's Republic of China: A Partnership Between Schools of Nursing in Ottawa, Canada, and Tianjin, China

Abstract

Community health nursing in China is an emerging specialty. A multi-component collaborative endeavor between the Schools of Nursing of Tianjin Medical University, China, and the University of Ottawa, Canada is described. This project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, commenced in 1989. It has laid the groundwork for an expanded role for community health nurses in Tianjin, a municipality of 11 million people located in Northeast China. The historical context for the evolution of community health nursing in China and the emergence of community health nursing as a priority area within the project are described. Major project activities are highlighted, illustrating several underlying principles for strengthening the educational preparation of baccalaureate nurses who can apply community health skills. These include creating a critical mass of faculty who can teach community health nursing, modelling classroom and clinical teaching of community health nursing, bridging the gap between nursing in the community and nursing, in the hospital, and developing a prototype for baccalaureate community health nursing experience. Lessons learned from this initiative are summarized.

The nursing education system in the People's Republic of China: evolution, structure and reform

“…the multicomponent collaborative endeavour between the Tianjing Medical University and the University of Ottawa Schools of Nursing to build community‐based programmes ( Edwards et al 1999; Papai et al 1999), and…”

“…Exchange programmes between sister schools, such as Hunan Medical University and Yale University, generated enthusiasm and positive outcomes (Watkins 1996). Perhaps the two exemplary projects in this regard are: • the multicomponent collaborative endeavour between the Tianjing Medical University and the University of Ottawa Schools of Nursing to build community-based programmes (Edwards et al 1999;Papai et al 1999), and • the Community-Based International Learning Programmes -China Project between Schools of Nursing, Beijing Medical University and the University of Michigan (University of Michigan School of Nursing 1999).…”

International nursing faculty exchange model: a Chile–USA case

“…Despite recognition of the usefulness of international faculty‐exchange programmes in nursing, there is minimal literature on the topic. Based on a Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) review over the last 5 years, there were only four reports focusing on international nursing faculty exchanges (Thomas et al 1994; Byrne & Falk 1996; Byrne 1998; Edwards et al 1999). Byrne (1998) reported informatively on her 6‐week faculty exchange experience at a Swedish university, in which her activities included teaching, consultation and socialization.…”

“…However, this was a project carried out specifically to prepare the Jordan faculty in nursing education and the visitors were not integrated as members of the faculty. Finally, Edwards et al (1999) gave an account of their partnership between the school of nursing in Ottawa and Tianjin, China, in which nurses from the Canadian university taught an elective course to nursing students in China. They found that it was important to understand the culture‐specific features of the change process in the new setting.…”

Using Grounded Theory to Reveal Tacit Knowledge for Nurse Educators in an Unfamiliar African Setting

“…Tlou (1998) described developing an international nursing education partnership as a series of multiple processes rather than procedural tasks, and recommended that the process of initiating a partnership begin with learning about partners' institutional and human resources. Other authors indicated the need to learn about the contexts for health care and education (Byrne, 1998;Carty & White, 1996;Edwards, Bunn, Mei, & Hui, 1999;Johnson, Ghebreyohanes, Cunningham, Kutenplon, & Bouey, 2007), existing resources (Byrne, 1998;Johnson et al, 2007), learner characteristics (Byrne, 1998;Johnson et al, 2007), curriculum needs (Bryne, 1998;Johnson et al, 2007), nursing roles and scopes of practice (Kuehn et al, 2005), and sociopolitical influences on the health care environment (Girot & Enders, 2004).…”