Sent January 4th 2012
Greetings from Bangaluru,
God has blessed our efforts in Bangalore, India. The trip and our interaction with nursing faculty has exceeded our expectations. The Bangalore Baptist Hospital is a beautiful example of reaching out to people in need. On New Year’s day we attended worship in the hospital chapel. The mission of the hospital is “To provide quality wholistic care to all people and train others to do the same, sharing the love of Jesus Christ, drawing people to in and growing together into a mature community.” The chaplain shared that to achieve the mission every single patient hears about the love of Jesus Christ. We have been told that even though the patients could receive free care from a government hospital they choose to come here in part due to the kindness shown them by hospital employees.
Working with the Principal, or Dean, of the Rebekah Ann Naylor School of nursing we planned a workshop to meet learning needs. It has been a period of change at the school and the timing was right for this workshop. One change is that it has been less than a month since the school added computers and internet access for the students. Another significant development is that a baccalaureate degree in nursing has recently been approved and the first class is progressing through the program. These changes have altered the teaching expectations of faculty and created an ideal time for our workshop.
Today is the third day of our faculty development workshop at the Rebekah Ann Naylor School of Nursing and the faculty have been attentive and interested with many questions each day. They have been active in discussion and group activity. The first day of the workshop the faculty were asked to choose a topic that would be relevant to their teaching. The faculty will develop a brief presentation incorporating information from the workshop. It has been gratifying to see the efforts they are putting forth; this morning our team member / librarian Michele Malloy arrived early and a few of our Indian colleagues requested assistance with their online searches. We are looking forward to seeing how they apply what we have taught.
We have been blessed by our work here. Our colleagues have greeted us with grace and kindness. We have been impressed by their professionalism. As in all cooperative efforts we have learned and grown and we have gained knowledge that will help us be better teachers.
We have identified areas for future workshops and potential research topics. We hope that this is the first endeavor in an ongoing relationship between Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing and The Rebekah Ann Naylor School of Nursing.