Early History
In 1991, a Friendship Bridge delegation of
three nurses traveled to Ho Chi Minh City to
make an assessment of the nursing conditions
in hospitals and nursing education programs.
They found the physical conditions and
educational resources of the hospitals and
nursing schools in Ho Chi Minh City to be
distressed and limited, but found the
compassion and determination of the
Vietnamese nurse administrators and
educators to be very strong despite these
limitations.
Following this trip,
the FB Nurses Group was founded.
Comprised of nurses who supported the
development of professional nursing
education and practice in Vietnam,
two of the FB nurses from the 1991 trip
became the primary coordinators; a third
coordinator was added in 1995. This
group is now called the FB Steering
Committee.
From 1991 – 1995, the FB
Nurses established collaborative
relationships with nurse educators
affiliated with universities in Vietnam and
nurse leaders affiliated with the Vietnamese
Nurses Association. Initial activities of
the group involved educational in-service
presentations, clinical teaching, and
consultation for hospitals in the Ho Chi
Minh City and Dong Thap Province areas.
This network of volunteer
masters and doctorally prepared nurses who
comprised the FB Nurses Group began to
evolve with these early activities. As
relationships further developed with
Vietnamese educators, the agreement for the
series of Post-Baccalaureate Nursing courses
was confirmed to begin in 1995 at the
University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho
Chi Minh City.
Post-Baccalaureate Nursing
Class with faculty and students
2004
POST-BACCALAUREATE NURSING COURSES
The FB Nurses taught 3 series of
post-baccalaureate nursing
courses to nurse educators and
leaders in Vietnam from 1995 –
2004. The courses were taught at
universities in both North and
South Vietnam.
(University of Medicine and
Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City 1995 – 1999 &
2002 – 2005 and Nam Dinh Medical High
School/Nam Dinh Medical University in Nam
Dinh City 2000 – 2001). The purpose of the courses
was to upgrade the knowledge of
baccalaureate Vietnamese nurses for practice
in Vietnam and to prepare them for
acceptance into graduate nursing education. A total of 73 FB Nurses were needed to teach
28 courses to 88 Vietnamese students over
this 10 year period. Several FB teachers
taught 2 – 3 times with this project.
Post-Baccalaureate nursing
class with Steering
Committee, course faculty and students -
2005.
|
