Professor Jean Johnson, the founding Dean of the School of Nursing at the George Washington University (GWU), visited with the Child Nurse Practice Development Initiative recently to begin assisting in what is to be an extensive refinement and evaluation process for the new Professional Masters in Child Nursing Programme - to be offered by the Child Nurse Practice Development Initiative and the UCT Department of Nursing and Midwifery from 2016.

No less than six Masters of Science in Nursing (MSN) degrees, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice, have been established at GWU under Prof Johnson’s deanship. Johnson is thus well versed in various models of curriculum development and evaluation and is a welcome pair of “extra hands” in helping ensure that the new clinical Masters is best aligned with evidence-based research thinking and clinical nursing practice for the African context.

Prof Johnson’s initial scoping visit this week included strategic meetings and conversations with the Dean of Health Sciences at UCT, Prof Wim de Villiers, as well as with the acting head of the Division of Nursing & Midwifery, Mrs Pat Mayers, and Sr Jane Booth, an Advanced Clinical Nurse Practitioner from the Breatheasy Tracheostomy & Ventilation Homecare Programme (Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital). Special time with prospective students for the 2016 Professional Masters Programme provided Prof Johnson with chance to dialogue with the nurses regarding their advanced, clinical training in paediatric nursing and what this may entail.

Johnson will conclude her visit at the 5^th Child Health Priorities Conference in Bloemfontein, 3 - 5 December 2014. Here she will have chance to meet with Dr Neil McKerrow, Head of the Ministerial Committee on Morbidity and Mortality in Children under 5 years (CoMMiC), as well as the members of the fledgling Paediatric Nursing Association of South Africa (PNASA) – an association of paediatric nurse specialists working on established District Clinical Specialist Teams (DCSTs) that have been tasked to strengthen paediatric care in primary healthcare services across the country.

[Pictured above (left to right): Sr Galiema Haroun, Professor Jean Johnson, Associate Professor Minette Coetzee, Sr Cecilene Mentoor and Sr Angelina Schrikker]