Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Technology and Nursing Education

Technology has transformed our lives. As nurse educators we have phones, laptops, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs),ipods and many others. Our students too have these gadgets. The students, being technology natives, are able to perform more complicated tasks with their gadgets. Surprising though is the fact that we rarely use these when teaching our students and patients.

The reasons for none use are many. First, technology is intimidating. Most of us are anxious in front of a computer, we do not use most of the functions our Blackberries have. The other deterrent is our internet. Most applications need regular updates. Besides, many nursing colleges in Malawi do not have reliable internet.

Information technology is an important part of contemporary health care delivery. Whilst the literature consistently stresses the need for nursing students to be skilled not only in computing, but to understand clearly the role of technology
in practice, it appears that much of this advice is unheeded.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Having stated the problem succinctly, Kondwani, have you any solutions?

Kondwani Wella said...

Linga, I used this entry to start a discussion with my class. I thought out of the discussion we would come up with suggested solutions