Life Lessons for Lexie: Africa Edition: University of Rwanda's 1st International Nursing & Midwifery Conference

     Last week the University of Rwanda hosted its first ever International Nursing and Midwifery conference. I think despite the hassles of trying to pull off such an immense project it was quite a success. There were approximately 40 posters, including three from CHUB and they all looked wonderful. My friend Becky did a lot of hard work, as did the rest of the committee, and I think it is really a great success for the school and the HRH program. Many of the US Universities sent representation and several of the program coordinators gave presentations. There were people who came from Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, and South Africa (not to mention the States). Not bad for the first conference ever!

     I will brag about Emmanuel and my poster, despite slight printing issues it looked quite impressive. The dean of the school of nursing and midwifery asked multiple questions about what we were doing and I think she was impressed! At least I hope so! Emmanuel fielded many questions (I may have kept a steady stream of ex-pats heads his direction) and everyone said that he did a great job explaining the details of our work. He worked very hard to be prepared for questions. He even had friends read the poster and ask him questions beforehand to practice.

     Our poster was titled "Identifying Nurse Education Needs with Documentation Audits." It focused on how the ICU has been involved in HRH since Year 1 of the program, during Year 2 there was the development of new flowsheets for documentation and now in Year 3 we are using audits to identify focus points and educational needs. It was really well received and it's something that I can at the end of the year say, when I arrived the nurses were documenting only 40% of the information on the flowsheet. But now they are documenting 80%. It might not always be correct, but we are working on that and I certainly don't expect them to be perfect. I doubt that my documentation back home was perfect. But I did my best and I know that they are too.

     The Minister of Health even made an appearance at the conference, which I think the nurses truly appreciated. She is quite the spitfire and I enjoyed hearing her address the nurses. She believes that they really make a difference in saving lives and expressed that to them. I hope they remember that themselves when they are at work. I am happy that the conference was a success for Rwanda. I hope next year it's even more so!