Background: Midwives have been frontline health professionals at the grassroots level, especially in rural communities. Their role was expanded from maternal and child healthcare providers to primary healthcare services providers. Despite their expanded functions, there have been limited studies investigating the professional practice of midwifery in the Philippines in a rural setting. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the professional practice of midwives in selected rural areas in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. Methods: This research is a qualitative pilot study using a semi-structured interview guide to collect the data. Key informant interviews were conducted through mobile phone calls convenient for the participants from September to October 2021. Data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Results: A total of seven rural health midwives participated in this study. From the data analysis, six themes emerged related to the professional functions of rural Filipino midwives: 1) antenatal and postnatal care, 2) basic emergency obstetrical and newborn care, 3) health education and counseling, 4) treating common children and adult infections, 5) health promotion, and 6) beyond midwifery role. Conclusion Rural midwives play a role in providing several primary healthcare services mandated by the government and the profession. They also offer health services beyond their scope as midwives because of geographical difficulties and logistic issues. The findings inform the policymaker to review and amend the expanded roles of practicing midwives so that they will be empowered in providing quality and legal healthcare services. The study results will also be important in preparing midwives for rural midwifery practice.
midwives ; professional practice

Anesthesia, General ; Coronavirus Infections ; prevention & control ; transmission ; Humans ; Infectious Disease Transmission, Patient-to-Professional ; prevention & control ; Occupational Exposure ; prevention & control ; Operating Rooms ; Otorhinolaryngologic Surgical Procedures ; Pandemics ; prevention & control ; Personal Protective Equipment ; classification ; Pneumonia, Viral ; prevention & control ; transmission ; Practice Guidelines as Topic

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 has presented multiple challenges to global healthcare services, dictating changes in almost every aspect of daily medical practice. Performing aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) in the field of interventional pulmonology can lead to profound formation of aerosols, leading to a high risk of infection among healthcare workers (HCWs). We share our experiences on performing AGPs in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on changes in AGP practices. In a pandemic, HCWs ought to adapt to the ever-changing situation and use available resources to provide the best possible healthcare to patients, ensure safety of staff, and continue medical education of future pulmonologists.
Aerosols ; Bronchoscopy/trends* ; COVID-19/transmission* ; COVID-19 Testing ; Humans ; Infection Control/trends* ; Infectious Disease Transmission, Patient-to-Professional/prevention & control* ; Malaysia ; Practice Patterns, Physicians'/trends* ; Tertiary Care Centers ; Thoracoscopy/trends*

PURPOSE: Using a quantitative approach, this study aims to assess Indonesian nurses' perception of their knowledge, skills, and preparedness regarding disaster management. METHODS: This study was a descriptive comparison in design. The research samples are Indonesian nurses working in medical services and educational institutions. The variables of nurses' preparedness to cope with disaster victims were measured using the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool (DPET), which was electronically distributed to all nurses in Indonesia. Data were analyzed using a statistical descriptive one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and t-test with a significance level of 95%. RESULTS: In total, 1341 Indonesian nurses completed this survey. The average scores of preparedness to cope with disasters, the ability to recover from disaster, and evaluation of disaster victims were 3.13, 2.53, and 2.46, respectively. In general, nurses surveyed in this study are less prepared for disaster management, and do not understand their roles both during the phase of disaster preparedness, and when coping with a post-disaster situation. CONCLUSION Nurses' preparedness and understanding of their roles in coping with disasters are still low in Indonesia. Therefore, their capacity in preparedness, responses, recovery, and evaluation of disasters needs improvement through continuing education. The efforts needed are significant due to potential disasters in Indonesia and adequate nurses resources.
Adaptation, Psychological ; Adult ; Civil Defense ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Disaster Planning ; Disaster Victims ; Education, Nursing, Continuing ; Female ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Humans ; Indonesia ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nurses ; psychology ; Perception ; Professional Role ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Young Adult

Child development refers to the continuous but predictably sequential biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescence. Developmental surveillance should be incorporated into every child visit. Parents play an important role in the child's developmental assessment. The primary care physician should educate and encourage parents to use the developmental checklist in the health booklet to monitor their child's development. Further evaluation is necessary when developmental delay is identified. This article aimed to highlight the normal child developmental assessment as well as to provide suggestions for screening tools and questions to be used within the primary care setting.
Adolescent ; Checklist ; Child ; Child Development ; Child, Preschool ; Developmental Disabilities ; diagnosis ; Female ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Male ; Parent-Child Relations ; Parents ; psychology ; Physicians, Primary Care ; psychology ; Primary Health Care ; Professional-Family Relations ; Singapore

PURPOSE: This study aimed to propose a common scope of practice (SOP) for 13 specialties of Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) in Korea.METHODS: The first draft of a common SOP was extracted from domestic and international laws with a literature review by 17 experts from the Korean Association of Advanced Practice Nurses (KAAPN). Then, the common SOP was finalized after comparing the activities of APNs in clinical settings.RESULTS: A total of 70 duties were identified and six categories were suggested for the common SOP. The SOP proposed by the KAAPN featured the following: 1) identification of and discrimination between health problems; 2) prescription and implementation of diagnostic tests; 3) treatment of injuries and diseases while implementing measures to prevent exacerbation; 4) prescription of medicinal products in line with 1) to 3); 5) referral and consultation; and 6) education and counseling. It was then confirmed that the proposed six categories in the common SOP reflected all the duties performed by APNs in clinical practice, including all 40 activities.CONCLUSION: The results of this study can be used as evidence for the legalization of a common SOP for APNs. Given the increasing multidisciplinary team approach adopted in Korean hospitals, it may be desirable to establish a broader SOP to reflect the diverse duties of APNs.
Counseling ; Diagnostic Tests, Routine ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Education ; International Law ; Korea ; Prescriptions ; Professional Practice ; Referral and Consultation

PURPOSE: Medical students construct their identity as a student physician through clinical clerkship. However, there is a lack of research on the effect of clinical clerkship on professional self-concept formation. The aim of this study is to analyze and ascertain the relationship between medical students' satisfaction with clinical clerkship and professional self-concept. METHODS: This investigation studied 84 third- and fourth-year medical students enrolled in the Ajou University School of Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine. Study measures tools included satisfaction with clinical clerkship and professional self-concept measurement. For data analyses, a descriptive analysis of the research variable characteristics was applied, gender differences in variables by years of medical school were analyzed with t-tests, and correlation analysis was used to check for relationships between variables. RESULTS: We found no statistically significant differences between satisfaction with clinical clerkship with respect to medical school year and gender. While professional self-concept did not show significant differences by year of medical school, we observed statistically significant differences by gender with respect to the subscales of professional practice and communication factor. In addition, satisfaction with clinical clerkship and professional self-concept demonstrated statistically significant positive correlation. The present research was able to confirm that there exists a correlation between medical students' clinical clerkship experience and professional self-concept formation. CONCLUSION: Our study outcomes shows that provision of positive assistance as a measure to enhance satisfaction with clinical clerkship via the curriculum and environmental improvement is envisaged to lead to medical students' professional self-concept formation.
Clinical Clerkship ; Curriculum ; Humans ; Professional Practice ; Schools, Medical ; Statistics as Topic ; Students, Medical

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Midwives have been the country's frontline health care providers in communities. Their role was expanded from largely providing maternal and child care services in the 1920s to provision of basic Primary Health Care services since 1970s. Despite their extensive roles, there has been no comprehensive enquiry on the professional practice of midwifery in the Philippines since it formally started in 1901. This study was conducted to (1) describe the evolution of midwifery education and regulation; (2) describe professional practice of midwifery and the midwives' role in the local health system; (3) identify gaps in the current midwifery practice, and; (4) recommend to improve and standardize the competencies of practicing midwives.

METHODOLOGY: The study is qualitative with a grounded theory approach using face-to-face Key Informant Interview (KII), Focus Group Discussion (FGD), and document review. The study, conducted from January to December 2015, purposively sought experts from different fields of midwifery, including midwifery-service providers, birthing home managers from public and private sector, academe, Department of Health (DOH), development partners, the country's three leading midwifery organizations, and the Board of Midwifery (BOM) of the Philippine Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

RESULTS: Changes in midwifery education, scope of practice and standards were in response to the country's health challenges in maternal and child health. Public midwives were frontline implementors of 57 DOH programs. Despite their vital role and expanded workload, the tenure or plantilla positions of government midwives continued to have the same salary grade promulgated in 2000 while others, although the numbers are unknown, do not have security of tenure. There were no learning and development initiatives designed to enable midwives to become implementors of multiple programs. Regulation of midwifery practice was not cohesive. The standards of practice were program-based and were scattered in different policies.

RECOMMENDATION: The study recommends that the DOH, PRC, and midwives' organizations review and revise the scope of midwifery practice in line with global standards, as well as to implement a competency-based career development pathway that is integrated with the regulatory system.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the cancer survivorship care practices among oncology nurses in Korea. METHODS: This study was a secondary analysis based on the Korean data from the international service-mapping study for the survivorship care for patients with cancer after treatment completion in the Asia-Pacific Region. The data, collected from 100 Korean nurses who took care of cancer patients, were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation analysis, and multiple regression. RESULTS: Statistically significant relationships were found between responsibility and frequency of survivorship care (r=-.20, p=.050), between confidence and frequency of survivorship care (r=.47, p<.001), and between impediments to organization and frequency of survivorship care (r=-.22, p=.027). The frequency of survivorship care was influenced by confidence (β=-.37, p<.001) which explained about 24% of the variance of survivorship care. CONCLUSION: These findings show that development of survivorship care education program for oncology nurses should be considered to increase confidence in survivorship care for oncology nurses.
Education ; Humans ; Korea* ; Oncology Nursing ; Professional Practice ; Survival Rate* ; Survivors

PURPOSE: This study aimed to analyze the mobility of newly graduated nurses from regions where their nursing schools were located to regions where they took up their first jobs, and to identify factors influencing nurses' mobility. METHODS: Data from the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey, collected annually from 2010 to 2014 by the Korea Employment Information Service, were analyzed. The sample consisted of 1,488 graduates and 1,229 nurses who were employed on a full-time basis in hospitals. Multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify factors associated with geographic mobility. RESULTS: Among the nurses working in hospitals, 69.2% had their first jobs in their nursing school regions and 11.3% in their high school regions. Fifty-two percent of the nurses worked in the capital region; 47.2% thereof had moved from a non-capital region. Nurses were more likely to work in their nursing school region when they were female, were older, graduated from a high school located in their nursing school region, graduated from a college (vs. university), had a lower nursing school performance, and expected lower monthly wage, compared with those who left their nursing school region. CONCLUSION: Education and remuneration policies are required to reduce geographical mobility to the capital region.
Education ; Employment ; Female ; Humans ; Information Services ; Korea ; Logistic Models ; Professional Practice Location ; Remuneration ; Salaries and Fringe Benefits ; Schools, Nursing