First cohort of nurses complete post-graduate studies in community health nursing

Seven nurses have graduated from the Graduate Diploma in Community Health Nursing programme, the first part-time post-graduate course in Singapore allowing working nurses to study for credentialisation in community healthcare.

Nurse clinician and patient navigator at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) Mas Rizalynda Mohd Razali, 43, has more than 20 years of nursing chops under her belt. Assistant nurse clinician at the National University Polyclinics Bettina Lim, 29, has eight. The two community nurses, who are at different points in their careers, are among the diverse first cohort of seven nurses who graduated from the Graduate Diploma in Community Health Nursing programme in June this year.

The part-time post-graduate programme, targeted at nurses with a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing with at least a year’s working experience in a community setting, was launched by the NUS Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies in 2019. It allows working nurses like Ms Mas, Ms Lim and their fellow classmates to gain formal qualifications in community health nursing by pursuing flexible, part-time study.

Accredited by the Singapore Nursing Board, the course provides students with a strong foundation in community health nursing, an emerging area in Singapore’s nursing landscape given its fast-ageing population.

“We are very proud of our graduates for their hard work and effort in finishing the programme despite having to serve the nation during a pandemic,” says Associate Professor M Kamala Devi, the programme’s director.

Ms Mas describes the course as a “steep learning curve”. “A major highlight of the programme was learning how to perform advanced clinical assessments during home visits,” she says. “Community nurses usually visit patients in their homes without the presence of doctors, and these examinations help us administer the right interventions for our patients,” she explains.

Ms Mas, who was working as a community nurse during the course, recalls the first time she was able to apply her clinical decision-making and management skills. “My confidence in assessing my patient’s signs and symptoms increased and I was able to make immediate clinical decisions on whether the patient could be managed in the community safely or should be sent to the Emergency Department,” she says. 

Ms Mas’ community nursing journey started much earlier, as one of SGH’s pioneer batch of patient navigators (PN). The PN scheme, introduced by the Hospital in 2014, allocates trained nurses to help patients and their families coordinate treatment plans, navigate the healthcare system, and ensure continuity of care provision from an acute to a community setting.

“Moving to the PN role after 16 years as an oncology nurse in the ward allowed me to see the continuation of care provision even after a patient was discharged. I understood how planning a patient’s post-discharge care as early as the day of admission could reduce the number of readmissions,” she says.

A firm believer in constantly updating her clinical skills and challenging the status quo in her nursing career, in 2017, Ms Mas transitioned to the Hospital’s community nursing team after completing a strategic development nursing programme and visiting Sweden with a team of nurses and PNs to observe its community nursing practices.

“Moving into community nursing allowed me to venture further beyond the hospital setting. At the patients’ homes, I could consider their living environments and community resources to nurse them better,” she says.

Unlike Ms Mas, Ms Lim has been a community nurse since she graduated with a Nursing diploma in 2013. “I strongly believe prevention is better than cure, and community nursing focuses on that, putting the patient and the patient’s family at the centre of care delivery,” she says.

Ms Lim feels that community nursing has helped her become more resourceful, stay connected and embrace change. “Community nursing has created opportunities for me to deliver holistic and comprehensive patient care,” she adds.

Like Ms Mas, Ms Lim is also a lifelong learner with an illustrious record of continuous learning. She completed her Bachelor of Nursing degree in 2014, and then her Master of International Healthcare Leadership in 2017.

In 2019, she enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Community Health Nursing course. She believes that the knowledge she has gained from the course will allow her to deliver better care for her patients. “As I am also a clinical instructor at Bukit Batok Polyclinic, I am now more confident in guiding and teaching my fellow nurses and nursing students,” she adds.

To learn more about NUS Nursing’s Graduate Diploma in Community Health Nursing programme, visit here.