Exploring the Recruitment of Nursing Staff Through a Co-operative Placement Program
Summary
For this project, we wanted to explore the possibility of having a co-operative placement program for nursing students and we explored this experience first in the medicine and surgical floors at the Montfort Hospital. The Montfort Hospital is a french academic hospital in Ottawa and the clientele that benefit the most from this research project are nurses at the Montfort Hospital and french nursing students who are in their second, third or fourth year at the University of Ottawa.
Montfort Hospital’s mission is to improve access to health care in french and to train future generations of health care professionals in french. However, recruitment and retention remain a big challenge. Therefore, in an effort to enhance the care that is currently offered, to increase employee retention, and to have the Montfort Hospital recognized as a hospital where students develop unparalleled skills and clinical knowledge, we would like to explore whether a program such as the cooperative internships could encourage newly graduated nurses to choose the Montfort Hospital as an employer.
We conduct a review of the literature on the subject of co-operative internship programs in nursing and other health care sciences. Thereafter, we contacted academic institutions that currently have a co-operative program to conduct a curriculum review to be able to identify the avenues necessary to undertake a co-operative placement program. Finally, we develop a draft for a co-operative program at the Montfort Hospital to better understand the characteristics of the work environment that promote the growth of future nurses and to allow student nurses to acquire more practical experience in Nursing.
I chose to combine the subjects of leadership and education for my internship, as I wanted to be able to develop my knowledge and skills in these areas. During my project, I completed an in-depth review of the literature on the subject of nursing co-op programs in relation to the recruitment of nursing staff. Given the current context in the health sector, I was able to take this opportunity to improve my knowledge and skills in data collection and research, and to share the results of my work with the next generations in my profession.
I was also able to learn how to conduct a nursing curriculum and education review in collaboration with my mentors to develop my knowledge and skills in expanding and evaluating education programs. As an education leader, I am now able to better understand the characteristics of the workplace that support the growth of future nurses and the professional growth of nurses.
Finally, I developed some leadership skills and qualities. For me, a good leader is confident, respectful, has integrity, supports the learning of people on their team, uses good communication and listening techniques. This fellowship has helped me to develop theses qualities of a good leader and to become an agent of change. I believe that my mentors knowledge and skills in leadership and project management has helped me greatly with all the abilities and expertise that I’ve gain during this fellowship.
Outcomes
In general, I think that this fellowship helped me develop my skills and knowledge that enable me to be a better nurse and a better nurse educator. My fellowship also improved my ability to identify and better understand the need for a co-operative placement program in the health sciences academic community.
I hope that in the long-term, this project could positively and directly contribute to the training of the next generations of nurses. With our proposed co-operative placement program, practicum learning objectives and personal learning objectives for student nurses will be met or even exceeded.
The development of a co-operative placement program could allow the nursing students at the School of Nursing to acquire more clinical experiences and minimize the transition shock between training and the workplace for new nurses. Finally, we think that this training program has the potential to improve patient care.
While developing my leadership skills (for example: active listening and good communication skills) I became a better leader in my team and I gradually took on more and more leadership roles. Therefore, I became a resource for my colleagues about nursing leadership and education. Also, I helped my colleagues acquire new knowledge and skills through mentorship training.
We hope that in the long-term, this project helps during the development of a co-operative placement program and therefore, gives my colleagues more opportunities to engage in mentoring or preceptor roles and to share their knowledge with nursing students.
If this project keeps getting attention in the academic community and the hospital, we hope that a co-operative placement program increases the recruitment of students and new graduates in the practice. Finally, we think that the development of a co-operative placement has the potential to bridge the gap between education and practice, and therefore may assist newly graduated nurses as they transition into practice. They could potentially have more confidence, knowledge and skills.
Overall experience
I am very glad to have had the opportunity to complete this fellowship. I had amazing support from the team at RNAO and from my mentoring team. My mentors and others were always there to answer my questions, help me to develop my critical thinking abilities and guide me to the next steps. My favorite moments from this fellowship was being able to meet and collaborate with people at the Montfort Hospital, the University of Ottawa and during conferences. Since I had the opportunity to meet a lot of people throughout this fellowship, I started writing a protocol for a scoping review with some of my mentors and a professor at the University of Ottawa. Having a team of people behind me that believed in this project means the world to me and I believe that this project is just the beginning. We hope to be able to continue our research and possibly implement a co-operative placement program.
