Tailoring Nursing Education Programs to Meet the Nature of Community Needs

Abstract

The invitation to be your theme speaker is an honour and a responsibility which I accepted willingly but with many misgivings. The theme as stated incorporates a philosophy that is basic to planning any educational program which prepares candidates for entrance to professional practice, since professions accept an obligation to be of service to society. Yet within the theme lies a broad range of questions pertinent to our concerns as members of the nursing profession and members of the academic community. Selection from that range proved even more difficult than I had anticipated. There are also connotations to the term "tailoring" which have troubled my thoughts. This word usually refers to a process which involves consultation with the purchaser, selection by him of a design and fabric suited to his wishes, measurement and meticulous attention to construct with exact fit. If the tailoring is successful the result is a garment that is functional and appropriate to the needs of the purchaser. Are the nursing education programs which we tailor proving to be functional and appropriate in meeting the needs of our purchasers _ ultimately the community _ and can we hope to achieve an exact fit? I propose to develop a focus within the theme by reviewing briefly the nature of community needs which our programs are attempting to meet and the areas of unmet need which we could or should meet. Against this background I intend to examine the degree of freedom we have and the types of constraints placed on us in tailoring our programs, and then to identify what seem to be crucial issues to be faced.