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
places that would provide clinical placements or experience for our
students. My personal opinion, enough in number or sufficiently
developed for us to be using these if the places, but I think
ultimately that it would be my dream that it became a practice that
students actually go out and work in any providers or initiatives that
are Maori focus. Primarily to develop our Maori work force but also
in terms of developing a general nursing workforce and our
understanding on what the nursing role and responsibility in terms
of Maori health providers” (Participant 5:184-198).
Teaching culturally sensitive material is also not that easy. In
Europe, an attempt was made to solve this problem by offering a
pre-registration European nursing degree, by offering components
of the programme in the UK, The Netherlands and in the Basque
Region of Spain (Scholes & Moore, 2000:61).
In the Department several attempts have been made to include
content that would improve the cultural awareness of the future
graduates. This tendency was noted by some of the stakeholders.
“I really like the way that the Treating of Waitangi and our
attendance to individuality goes right across the programme. It is
not something you do in the first year, first semester and never visit
again. It actually is that whole philosophy. I love the way it runs
through the whole programme. I think that is really powerful,
because it is not something that is compartmentalized. So I really
support that. . . “(Participant 8: 128-137). And also: “For a long
time we were wondering about how appropriately we add Maoricontent
into the curriculum and we were avoiding using the word
insert or Maori perspective” (Participant 5: 240-243).
Gerrish (1998:116) stated that practitioners must understand the
values and cultural prescriptions of the people receiving care from
them, especially if their own views would be impinging on the
values of their patient. This was recognised by some of the
stakeholders, who referred to the specific status of the Mäori People
in New Zealand. “In actual fact, because to me, Mäori are
significant and unique part of this country. The Tanga Ta Whenua,
in that under the Treaty of Waitangi, we are given that status”
(Participant 9: 85-89). However, the diversity within the Mäori-
People has also been identified. “And remember too that, the Mäori
population is just so diverse that, and what we see is our student
population quite diverse, as is our nursing population. And I think it
just gives people more time to get into the organisational culture,
acknowledging cultural differences within that culture and dealing
with patients as well. Because that is a confidence related matter I
think. What we do see is some Grads coming out and they are
petrified and they are too scared to talk to the patient” (Participant
7: 178-189).
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