By Beth Weins (Contributer) – Email
International nursing is a topic of interest for many nursing students; however, it is important that those who wish to enter the field are aware of the moral distress that caring for patients in different countries can create within themselves. Marilyn Schigol, a nursing instructor at the Thompson Rivers University, recently conducted a study on this very subject, and on March 15, she shared her findings with UFV. Her seminar – titled, “When Doing the Wrong Thing is Doing the Right Thing” – outlined the research Schigol conducted with 15 participants who were interviewed one year after their experiences with moral distress in international nursing.
Participants noted the difference in practice standards as a major challenge they faced while working in a hospital with minimal resources. One participant in the study described how dressing trays and swabs would be reused for multiple patients – which can cause contamination and aid the spread of disease. Another expressed how doctors and nurses had high expectations of Canadian students, to the point that one student was even left to deliver a baby on her own.
Thankfully, these students had instructors to assist them and help deal with their distress. In Schigol’s research, participants expressed how they empathized with patients and sometimes felt helpless, powerless, and frustrated at their inability to solve many of the problems they were faced with in insufficiently funded or supervised workplaces. Participants needed to clarify personal values, were faced with language barriers, underwent intense fatigue, and experienced a great deal of irritability.
Although the participants faced many challenges and internal moral conflict, however, not one participant regretted their decision to nurse overseas. Many reflected on the unique lessons they had learned, and the participants recommend that future nursing students who wish to nurse internationally study the culture, develop a tough skin, and make teambuilding a priority in order to ensure support.
The nursing program at UFV is privileged to be sending a team of five nursing students to Belize for three weeks in May this year. Natalie Steele, one of the students on the team, said she was “looking forward to experiencing the culture in Belize and being able to help in the hospital setting by educating people, both patients and health care professionals.” When asked whether the nursing students are prepared to deal with inner conflict on the trip, Alyssa Stewart – also travelling to Belize – said: “I am confident in the schooling and skills which I have acquired over the years in the nursing program, but I am sure that things will be different, in which case I am open to learning new techniques and adapting given the situation.”
