Students Get Hands-on Look at Nursing

CHIJ St Joseph’s Convent students acquire hands-on experience in the ward from first-year nursing student Nur Diyana Sapri.

Secondary school and junior college pupils had a chance to experience nursing up-close recently at the NUS Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies.

The pupils, who hailed from 16 schools, were participants of the Ministry of Health’s HALO (Health and Life-Skills) programme, hosted by NUS Nursing at the Centre for Healthcare Simulation from 14-25 May 2018.

Over two weeks, through edutainment activities, some 500 pupils were exposed to nursing, learnt about healthcare, and picked up life skills applicable to daily living, such as tying an arm sling.

About 50 NUS Nursing students played host to the youths at the interactive sessions, sharing first-hand their choice of nursing as a career, and giving future school-leavers an early exposure to degree-level nursing studies, student life, and career prospects for nursing degree-holders.

The HALO programme aims to generate young pupils’ interest in nursing through edutainment activities and one-on-one sharing with student nurses. More nurses will be required by our healthcare sector, with Singapore’s ageing population and the number of new healthcare institutions coming on stream. NUS Nursing research has shown that early exposure to healthcare positively influences a school-leaver’s career choice, making this programme an important one to attract more young school-leavers into the nursing profession.

Year 4 volunteers: (Clockwise from top left) Julienne Reblora, Charmaine Boo, Khadijah Mohd Sanusi, Lim Jae Young, Stiffany Ng, Lim Jia Rui and Sarah Ho.

Fourth-year student Charmaine Boo teaches pupils how to tie an arm sling, a handy life skill for coping with emergencies.

Leo Wong (left) and Koh Wei Shao, first- and third-year student, respectively, give Bedok Green Secondary students a demo on turning a patient.

Fourth-year student Stiffany Ng is one of the programme’s most prolific volunteers, spending her break to build rapport with pupils and introduce degree-level nursing to them.

First-year students Tan Jung Howe and Sharlyn Ng have just finished their morning shift at clinical posting, so this is their second “shift”, only this time, they are the instructors.

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