College of Nursing, CIHSR holds 1st National Nursing Conference
Morung Express News
Chümoukedima | April 11.webp)
The 1st National Nursing Conference began here today, at College of Nursing, Christian Institute of Health Sciences & Research (CIHSR) under the theme—Changing Landscape of Nursing: Equipping Nurses for the Future. The two-day meet is being attended by delegates and resource persons from top medical colleges and institutions across the country, which includes TNAI, CMC Vellore, AIIMS Kalyani, Pondicherry, Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati etc. Meanwhile, around 140 students from GNM (General Nursing and Midwifery) and BSc in Nursing from the host college are partaking in the event.
During the first plenary session, Dr Clement Momin, Medical Superintendent of CIHSR spoke on the topic—Innovative Nursing Leadership for Quality Health Care. While maintaining that the country has been putting in effort on ‘innovation and start-ups’ for the last few years, Dr Momin remarked that this was the ‘right time’ to talk about the nursing innovation.
In 2009, the International Council of Nurses had said that ‘innovation is central to improving healthcare quality.’ “This is what leads us to consider this topic even today.” He said while noting that it was only appropriate that the nursing fraternity start to talk about the vision, growth, ideas, its process and creativity in the nursing innovation.
Maintaining that innovation was not something new in the nursing circle, Dr Momin deliberated on its history giving instances on the creation of the first simulation manikin, crash cart, stretcher, Wong Baker’s pain scale, Red Cross etc.
He explained that innovation can be defined as putting new ideas into practice or incorporating existing ideas into practice in a new way. Meanwhile innovative leadership refers to philosophy and management technique that focuses on the integration of various leadership styles in an effort to increase creativity, competency and collaboration within the workplace.
Dr Momin talked about the five traits of innovation leaders – visionary thinking, boldness, decisiveness, empathy and resourcefulness. As an innovative thinker, he divulged on the characteristics of innovative leadership, such as being able to take risks, failure tolerance, the need to be agile, divergent thinking as in, thinking out of the box and having autonomy of freedom.
While noting the needs that will always be there along the way, he said that it was “up to us to see and respond to the need that is rising.” Dr Momin further encouraged the gathering not to be bogged down by failures during the process, but that “success is always paved with many failures.”
Time constraints, lack of resources, fear of failure and resistance to change were some challenges that the medical superintendent highlighted which surrounds the innovation process. Despite such dynamics, he stated there are potentials within the nursing society which needs to be unpacked and given the opportunity to fully grow.
The long-day event included panel discussions and scientific paper presentations—oral and poster from the students of College of Nursing.
