Transforming diabetic foot care - Glasgow Caledonian University
Transforming diabetic foot care - Glasgow Caledonian University
Transforming diabetic foot care - Glasgow Caledonian University
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page four<br />
News<br />
Anchorman praises<br />
award winning students<br />
John MacKay with REAL WoRLD winners<br />
23,000 nurses serve<br />
145 million people<br />
in Bangladesh -<br />
compared to 680,000<br />
nurses serving 60<br />
million in the UK<br />
(GCCN)<br />
STV news anchorman John MacKay<br />
was full of praise for GCU’s journalism<br />
students when he presented awards<br />
to the winners of the Real WoRLD<br />
employability competition.<br />
John, who also presents Scotland Tonight,<br />
urged students to take advantage of every<br />
opportunity, and to make the most of work<br />
experience placements to get their feet in the<br />
door of the highly competitive media industry.<br />
“Work experience is invaluable and it is a<br />
great chance to make a good impression.<br />
Many people in this industry have built<br />
successful <strong>care</strong>ers on the back of an<br />
impressive work experience placement. The<br />
most important thing is to demonstrate that<br />
you are interested in the opportunities and<br />
experiences to be gained by work experience<br />
– you wouldn’t believe how many people<br />
come in and just sit on Facebook and Twitter,”<br />
said John.<br />
“That’s not to say that social media is not a<br />
useful tool. I am a big fan of GCU’s Caley Chat<br />
opening title sequence, which I first saw on<br />
Twitter.”<br />
Competitors were tasked with interviewing<br />
fellow students who have improved their<br />
employability skills through work experience.<br />
They then told their stories in a print article,<br />
radio/video package or on-line slide show.<br />
First prize went to Rachael Fulton for her<br />
film about Events Management students Ally<br />
Turnbull and Claire Stuart, who set up their<br />
own company, ‘The Company of Wolves’.<br />
As well as a cash prize, Rachael will spend a<br />
week at STV on a work experience placement.<br />
The other winners were Craig Telfer,<br />
Louise Douglas, Antony Bushfield and Harriet<br />
Brace. They won a cash prize funded by<br />
GCU LEAD’s Real WoRLD project and an<br />
internship with one of the employers involved<br />
in the competition, including the Daily Record,<br />
PR companies and the press offices of the<br />
Scottish Funding Council and British Transport<br />
Police.<br />
Professor Barbara Parfitt<br />
Celebrating<br />
International<br />
Nurses Day<br />
Professor Barbara Parfitt ensured that<br />
International Nurses Day was a truly global<br />
experience, with events taking place in<br />
Mongolia and Bangladesh.<br />
Starting with an address to a global health<br />
conference in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Professor<br />
Parfitt then returned to the Grameen <strong>Caledonian</strong><br />
College of Nursing in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to<br />
celebrate with students.<br />
She says: “Our students held a small event in<br />
the college on the 12th but on the 17th, when<br />
I got back, we held a celebration and candle<br />
ceremony with first and second year students<br />
taking their nurses oath.<br />
“Last year, Princess Anne attended the<br />
ceremony and this time we invited the new<br />
Director of Nursing Services in Bangladesh<br />
to be our chief guest. We emphasise that<br />
our students will be ‘international nurses’ to<br />
distinguish them from those being trained<br />
in poorer quality colleges and schools. We<br />
want them to feel proud and to feel part of the<br />
larger, international community of nursing. The<br />
profession is looked down on here but I believe<br />
we are changing attitudes.”<br />
Professor Parfitt’s five decade long <strong>care</strong>er<br />
has taken her across the world. She has<br />
worked in the rural mountains of Afghanistan<br />
and Bhutan as a community nurse and midwife,<br />
as well as posts closer to home in London and<br />
at Manchester <strong>University</strong>.<br />
A move to GCU in 1995 led to a new <strong>care</strong>er<br />
direction when Professor Parfitt agreed to take<br />
on the challenge of establishing the Grameen<br />
<strong>Caledonian</strong> College of Nursing in Bangladesh,<br />
a country where nurses are poorly regarded but<br />
desperately needed.<br />
In 2009, Principal and Vice Chancellor<br />
Pamela Gillies, and Nobel Peace Prize winner<br />
Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen<br />
Trust in Bangladesh, reached agreement to<br />
establish a college for the education of nurses<br />
and midwives in Dhaka.<br />
The college opened to students the following<br />
year, offering the opportunity to train to the<br />
highest standards through the provision of<br />
quality education and research. Two years on,<br />
it continues to go from strength to strength,<br />
with regular visits from GCU nursing students,<br />
academics and researchers helping to maintain<br />
close links with the <strong>Glasgow</strong> campus.<br />
Professor Parfitt believes the college offers<br />
young women more than the chance of a<br />
<strong>care</strong>er – its work will impact on the community<br />
health needs of Bangladesh while encouraging<br />
new life skills for young women who are too<br />
often caught in a cycle of early marriage, early<br />
child-bearing and early death.<br />
Professor Parfitt has also recently returned<br />
from the World Health Congress in Washington,<br />
which was attended by more than 3,000<br />
delegates and aims to promote social business,<br />
technology for health and innovations in health<br />
<strong>care</strong>. She said: “I was part of the delegation with<br />
Professor Yunus, and we met potential donors<br />
and partners for health projects, including the<br />
nursing college.”<br />
Did you know…<br />
Bangladesh currently has more doctors<br />
than trained nurses and high maternal<br />
and child mortality statistics.<br />
“I believe we<br />
are making<br />
progress and<br />
that attitudes<br />
are starting to<br />
change”<br />
the<strong>Caledonian</strong><br />
Barbara Parfitt with Grameen <strong>Caledonian</strong> College students<br />
Professor Barbara Parfitt