Augusta State University Public Relations

BECOMING INVOLVED WITH STUDENT NURSES ORGANIZATIONS

GANS:
Augusta State University has a campus chapter of the Georgia Association of Nursing Students. GANS membership includes membership in the National Student Nurses' Association. Students are encouraged to join this important professional organization which keeps abreast of education and practice issues pertaining to nursing and health care.

Phi Chi Alpha Beta Nursing Sorority:
Phi Chi Alpha Beta is a student chapter of Chi Eta Phi Sorority Inc., an international nursing sorority with the following purposes: (a) to encourage the pursuit of continuing education among members of the profession, (b) to support continuous recruitment programs for nursing and the health professions, (c) to stimulate a close and friendly relationship among the members, (d) to develop working relationships with other professional groups for the improvement and delivery of health care services, and (e) to constantly identify a corps of nurse leaders within the membership who will function as agents for social change on the national, regional, and local levels.

All ASU nursing students in good standing are eligible to pledge to the sorority during or after the spring semester of the first year of nursing.

JAPANESE NURSING SEMINAR

The Department of Nursing hosted our first Japanese Nursing Student Seminar in March, 1997. The Japanese nursing students come from Takarazuka City Hospital School of Nursing. The students stay with families in Augusta and have experienced our “Southern Hospitality.” During their stay they visit Brandon Wilde, St. Joseph, Doctors, University, and Medical College of Georgia Hospitals. They learn about nursing education and health care in the United States and the impact of managed care on hospital stay and health care services.

Takarazuka is Augusta's Sister City in Japan. The School of Nursing was established in 1995 after the disastrous earthquake that struck Japan. The students visiting us are in their second year of the program. They have all been around 20 or 21 years of age and single. This is much different than ASU's nursing students; most of whom are married and whose average age is typically around 30 years.

Nursing education in Japan is structured similarly to the U.S. with content and experiences in all the speciality areas of medical-surgical nursing, maternal-newborn, pediatrics, and psychiatric nursing. A major difference, however, is in the amount of clinical experiences students receive in a hospital or community setting with "real" patients. Japanese nursing students spend much more time in simulated learning experiences in their skills labs, which were very elaborately and completely equipped with anything you might see in a real hospital setting. They are starting to do home care in Japan, so each of the schools of nursing visited in Takarazuka and Kobe had a traditional Japanese home built into their skills lab. The homes were completely handicapped-equipped and even had a ceremonial tea table.

The opportunities presented to our faculty and students through this type of cultural exchange with the Japanese nursing students is extremely valuable and enhances our emphasis on cultural diversity in our curriculum. We hope these opportunities will continue and even expand to other cultural groups in the future as we learn to meet the health care needs of an ever diverse patient population.