Nursing school in Nicaragua

I visited a nursing school here in Nicaragua on Saturday and learned all about nurse education here in Nica! The university is called La Universidad Martin Lutero and is conveniently located right next door to my host family house! I met with the Director of the Nursing Department, a really nice lady named Mercedes. She toured me around the nursing school and then we talked for a good 2 hours about nursing in Nicaragua and their school. I love meeting other nurses. There is a common thread of compassion and nurturing in all of us nurses. I love encouraging, supporting, and learning about nursing around the world.  Nurses Unite!

Okay so here is part of what I learned about Nurse Education in Nica:

There are 3 different levels of nursing here:

1.      Nursing Assistant: 9mo-1yr education program (equivalent to our Clinical Technicians)

2.      General Nurse: 3 year education program (like an LVN)

3.      Licensed Nurse: 5 year education program (like an RN)

There are 4 specialties (certifications) that you can get with an extra 1 year of education

1.      Mother/Baby

2.      Critical Care

3.      Public Health

4.      Administration

There are 4 Master’s in Nursing programs for another 1-2 years of education

1.      Advanced Clinical Nurse

2.      Nurse Educator

3.      Public Health

4.      Epidemiology

Like in the States they have classroom time and then time in the hospital/clinic/community doing hands on practice. Every Nursing school has a different color of scrubs/nurse uniform that they wear to clinical. Martin Lutero’s color is light blue. The director of the nursing school coordinates with a teacher that they have hired at each of the hospitals they do clinical practice at and that teacher is involved in supervising and evaluating the students at their clinical practice. There are normally 20ish students per teacher at clinical practice for Martin Lutero which is a smallest nursing school...in the university I went to groups were of about 6-8 students.  This is an issue becuase the teacher cannot supervise all of them and students do not get quality hands on practice before they begin their nursing career when here in Nica there is an average of  40-50 patients to 1 nurse in the hospitals. The new nurses will be pulled in a million directions with too many tasks to prioritize and manage and hadn't even had good hands on practice. AHH!

Nursing Students in a Licensed Nurse Program have clinical practice in:

1.      Observing and Learning the Role of a Nurse

2.      Fundamentals of Nursing (Vitals, basic assessment, positioning, bed baths, and intro to documentation)

3.      Surgical Nursing

4.      Maternity

5.      Community Health

6.      Administration

7.      Critical Care

8.      Psychological nursing

9.      Practicing the Profession (last clinical when solidifying skills and working as a nurse)

There are 3 nursing schools in Nicaragua:

1.      UNAN: the only public university with a nursing program. It has the biggest program

2.      UPOLI: private university. Most expensive nursing program.

3.      Martin Lutero: private university. Newest nursing school. Smallest and still developing nursing program.

The University Martin Lutero started its nursing program with hopes to get authorized by the Ministry of Health (equivalent to our National Health Department) to  have the nursing that graduate have their license and be able to do clinical practice in the hospitals/public clinics. However, for the first couple years they did not have this authorization so it was really tough for the school to organize clinical practice. They now have had the authorization from MINSA for the past 2 years to prepare Licensed Nurses and have been growing and developing their program with great vision and organization.

They currently have minimal supplies in their practice lab and have not been able to give their students an opportunity to practice any hands on skills before they get to the hospital/clinic. Students pay $30/month to attend the university. The main campus is here in Managua where they have 1,000 nursing students. However, what is unique about this university is that they have 21 seed universities all over the country where they have another 1,000 students and are preparing nurses to reach the rural, low healthcare access areas!

I have this dream of setting up partnerships between US nursing universities and other nursing schools around the world to share resources, education materials, and experiences to enrich and educate nursing students about nursing around the world. The director of the nursing school loved that idea and thought it would be fruitful for both parties. I see so much potential in collaboration and relationships with nursing schools. Go Nurses!

International Nurses Day is May 12^th and the Mercedes wants me to go to the celebration with her and is planning to introduce me to the president of the Nicaraguan Nurses Association! She also wants me to be a part of the celebration at their university on May 14^th. I am so excited to have spent the day with her. What a blessing! We will see what comes of the dreams I have for supporting nurses all over the world.

Love,
Ayla Landry

“Unless we are making progress in our nursing every year, every month, every week, take my word for it, we are going back."~Florence Nightingale, 1914