NURTURING EMPATHY: PATIENT CENTERED REFLECTIVE PRACTICE FOR UGANDAN NURSING STUDENTS

Introduction and Objective Despite being free of cost empathy, compassion and patient autonomy are often the first things to be abandoned in the harsh working environments of remote and resource poor healthcare settings. At Ugandan Nursing School Bwindi, we are attempting to tackle this by initiating a Patient-Centred Care Reflective Practice Program for nursing students. The program seeks to: • encourage continuous learning behaviour • develop reflective practice skills • enhance compassionate & ethical attitudes • encourage a patient-centered care approach Method Utilising participatory learning methodology, we run a weekly patient-centred care reflective practice group for final year diploma and certificate level nursing students. Students present cases each week and collectively examine their thoughts and actions relating to their clinical experiences. They are encouraged to consider the patient’s point of view and integrate this into the clinical decision making and care planning process. At the beginning and end of the course students will be asked to complete a self assessment and selection of situational judgment vignettes designed to evaluate their patient centred approach to care planning and clinical decision making. Results and Conclusions The pilot program is due to be completed in July 2016, results and conclusions are pending.