News from the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center
2020: The Year of the Nurse and the Midwife
We began 2020 celebrating the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife with our colleagues and students through events, film screenings and conversations. Our first film was Survivors: Hope and Resilience in the Time of Ebola, which we screened in early February for an audience of students and faculty from across the health sciences. Little did we know how important our discussion of the ethics of patient care in the face of an epidemic and shortages of protective gear would quickly become.
Webinar and Canvas catalogue course support nursing faculty in the transition to online learning
The abrupt shift to remote learning was one of the greatest challenges faced by faculty, students and everyone involved in nursing education around the world. Here at the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center, we brought together nurse educators with expertise in didactic and clinical teaching to share their strategies during a webinar on July 16, 2020. More than 80 faculty members from six continents participated. A Canvas course on resilient teaching and learning was created to continue sharing resources and best practices — the site is now open for registration. Web-based training on the use of both live and remote simulations in clinical learning for nursing faculty in Brazil and in the Caribbean is being developed by Clinical Assistant Professor and Co-director of the Clinical Learning Center Deb Lee Ph.D., FNP, ACNP-BC, CHSE, and members of our Collaborating Center team. Nursing students Lauren Almy (BSN ‘20), Riley Zick and Linnea Brunvand have all contributed to this work.
Advanced Practice Nursing and Universal Health Care in the Americas: looking back and looking forward
From 2016 to 2020, advanced practice nursing and the nurse’s role in the management of chronic disease were areas of emphasis for our Collaborating Center. In the most recent edition of Links Magazine, Clinical Instructor Megan Eagle, MSN, MPH, FNP-BC, looks back at some of our early and continuing collaborations with colleagues at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) in Mexico and highlights international policy discussions and educational collaborations, such as our work with the Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de l'Université Épiscopale d'Haïti (FSIL) in Haiti. In 2020, Eagle presented at a conference at UANL on the role of advanced practice nurses in chronic disease management, while UANL Professor Mercedes Gutierriez-Valverde presented to students at the U-M School of Nursing on diabetes in Mexico.
Maternity Waiting Homes projects begin with student participation despite travel restrictions
Many of our current projects at the Collaborating Center are focused on evaluating the impact of Maternity Waiting Homes (MWHs) on maternal and neonatal outcomes in Nicaragua and on disseminating best practices for MWHs to other countries in the Americas. Senior BSN honors student Kathy Sliwinski worked with the Collaborating Center team along with Mark Cantrell, DNP, maternal health advisor at the PAHO/WHO Nicaragua office, to develop protocols for stakeholder interviews and focus groups. When international travel was put on hold, we shifted our focus to analyzing existing maternal and infant mortality data and reviewing relevant literature for the best practices toolkit. In this endeavor, we have benefited from the efforts of BSN junior Grace Van Kannel in translating and working with the database as well as BSN senior Claire Yeamans, who has been reviewing published literature on the impact of MWHs on infant outcomes.
The State of the World’s Nursing Report — looking ahead to strategic directions for nursing and midwifery 2021-25
The State of the World’s Nursing Report, released in April 2020, is the most complete set of information on nursing workforce and education around the world ever compiled. Professor and PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center Director Jody Lori, Ph.D., CNM, FACNM, FAAN and Deputy Director Megan Eagle have been participating in discussions with nursing and midwifery leaders in the Americas about the planned strategic directions for nursing jobs, leadership and education in the years ahead. The World Health Assembly will consider these recommendations in 2021. If adopted, they will help governments and health ministries around the world ensure that midwives and nurses optimally contribute to achieving universal health coverage and other population health goals.
The WHO Collaborating Center’s Midwifery Network continues to grow
The WHO Collaborating Center’s Midwifery Network, of which we are a founding member, was proud to present its first webinar series. U-M School of Nursing Clinical Professor Ruth Zielinski Ph.D., CNM, FACNM, FAAN and Adjunct Professor Marie Klingberg-Allvin, RNM, Ph.D, were featured presenters in November for “Developments in Midwifery Education.” Lori also served as the moderator of the “Implementing Midwifery-led Care Globally,” webinar on Jan. 20, 2021.
Midwifery faculty contribute to upcoming WHO publication
In 2020, the World Health Organization published a series of case studies from around the world highlighting nursing’s contributions to universal health care. In 2021, a new book on the contributions of midwifery will be published. We are thrilled to let you know that the chapter on midwifery education will be authored by Clinical Professor Ruth Zielinski, Ph.D., CNM, and Clinical Instructor Nora Drummond, DNP, CNM FNP-BC.
