'Place For Nursing In University'

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31041, 22 April 1966, Page 2

'Place For Nursing In University '

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 21. Nurses had openly expressed the hope that nursing might find a place in the university, said Miss Alma Reid, director of the School of Nursing at McMaster University, Canada, in a report to the Victoria University council this week.

Miss Reid was assigned recently to advise the University Grants Committee on the desirability and feasibility of introducing university nursing education in New Zealand.

“Undoubtedly,” she said, "the nursing profession in general is keenly interested to see higher education in

nursing available to its members, and indications are that nurses would lend good support to this type of education.”

Nursing required degreeprepared people in its ranks for much the same reasons as any other profession, she reported. “It is clearly evident today that a scientific body of knowledge in nursing is emerging, that nursing can be theory rather than technique orientated and that it can be studied in a causeeffect relationship. “The study of nursing on a professional level is now possible and the breadth and depth of that study warrants its inclusion in a university programme,” Miss Reid said. Leaders in the profession favoured university preparation for selected nurses and hoped it would come about. “On the whole doctors expressed real interest and seemed eager to learn more about this kind of preparation for nurses,” she reported.

“I feel confident there are enough nurses and other people in New Zealand who possess the proper understanding, and who subscribe

to the right philosophy of university nursing education, to give good leadership to the others,” said Miss Reid. Class offerings appeared to be good in terms of appropriate subject matter. Social sciences, natural sciences and humanities were some of the relevant subjects. “Any university curriculum in nursing, should be designed to accommodate the offerings of the particular university in which it is located, and I see no insurmountable difficulties in making this sort of adaptation in most of the universities in New Zealand,” she said.