Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
constraints around it. But they still managed to give it reasonable
time, I felt. I think there was another issue in there and I think
some of the staff was not on board with the changes. They perhaps
were clinging to the old ideas and they did not really want to budge.
I don’t know how they are feeling now” (Participant 7: 144-158).
But due to certain circumstances, the whole process was delayed
and commend a bit later than planned, which put extra stress on
the development of the new curriculum: “In that because there was
a really tight timeframe, in fact we had gone over things. It was six
months later starting than it was envisioned originally. So it was
really tight. They won’t have any time really to think about it, I
don’t think” (FGR: 394-399). This demonstrates that people were
aware of the need to commence the process and bring it to fruition
within a certain time frame, although that was going to put train on
them.
Not attending meetings had consequences for the rest of the group.
“Clearly these were really busy people, so one of the difficulties was
that you did not always have the one meeting or workshop, you did
not always have exactly the same group. So there was always a
little bit of catching up with the group that had not been there. On
the whole there were people who were very committed and who
kept coming” (Participant 7:27-34). In fact, this “catching up”, or
“revisiting” decisions because of non-attendance, was mentioned by
some other stakeholders as well. “. . .some issues that came up,
that had been addressed, and where people constantly tried to
revisit. At times we had to be really clear that some decisions had
been made and that we had moved on. And I think that was difficult
for some people” (Participant 3: 117-121). This could have been
avoided if the group was well informed. On the other hand, some
stakeholders had the impression, that decisions were made without
informing the people involved, thus causing embarrassing
situations. “I know specifically for us, that was so frustrating. I
know they got presented at the forum and then said these have
been worked on already what you are presenting is old stuff. So we
took it away and we went for it again and then another draft came
out with the old stuff still in it. And then I found my original emails
and sent this to them. I said it was not what I wanted, I just wanted
the new work that had been done and to be there” (FGR: 532-541).
Such a situation should not have developed, and the programme
sponsors should investigate this in order to prevent occurrences like
these should a new curriculum be developed at some point in time
in the future.
It would appear though, that the impression existed that some
stakeholders were better informed than others. “I don’t know about
the stakeholders, because I don’t know entirely what process was
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