Yu Ying wants her journey south to Hong Kong to be "as fruitful"
as Xuan Zang's legendary trek west to India.
The venerable monk in the Tang Dynasty (AD618-907) brought home
many much-needed Buddhist scriptures.
Likewise, Yu, a 31-year-old nurse from the intensive care unit
(ICU) of Guangzhou's First People's Hospital, expects to bring home
Hong Kong's holistic approach to nursing, which she will share with
her colleagues in Guangzhou.
Yu, who arrived in Hong Kong earlier this month, was one of the
122 nurses from Guangdong to start a training program in Hong
Kong's public hospitals last Monday.
The 122 trainees from 71 hospitals in Guangdong were selected
from 280 applicants in March.
Yu will be trained at Tuen Mun Hospital for 10 months.
The scheme is the result of a four-year deal between Hong Kong's
Hospital Authority (HA) and Guangdong's health department. The
agreement was reached in May.
Under the deal, the HA will provide professional training in 10
departments to Guangdong nurses. The program will run through
2010.
This year the HA will provide ICU training in orthopedics and
surgery to four groups of nurses.
"The program will help me experience the nursing culture in Hong
Kong, which is quite different from what we have on the mainland,"
Yu, an ICU nurse with 14 years' experience, told China
Daily.
Yu added that mainland nurses would simply finish the jobs
assigned to them and then move on.
Yu, who got her nursing degree from the Polytechnic University
of Hong Kong in 2005, said she had learnt that the physical and
mental needs of patients are equally important.
Hospitals in Guangzhou recently introduced the concept of
looking after patients' mental heath, but "they are not doing it
thoroughly enough," she said.
For Yu, the program is more than a chance to polish her
professional skills. She sees it as her mission to introduce the
holistic approach to nursing to her colleagues back home, she
said.
"When I finish the program, I want to share with Guangdong
nurses how to take better care of patients," she said.
She added that learning and living in Hong Kong were a new
experience, and that she was grateful the HA had given her all the
support she needed.
Yu said for many of her classmates, especially those from the
more remote parts of Guangdong, Hong Kong's training system is
unique.
"They have been writing out lists of what they have to remember
in Hong Kong, such as always standing on the right hand side on an
elevator," she said.
However, she said her biggest challenge was using English, the
language in which most of the course materials are written.
Yu said that before coming Hong Kong, she and her classmates had
attended a one-month intensive English training course in
Guangzhou.
She added that she hoped to be appointed a professional nurse in
Guangzhou after the training.
HA's chief manager (Nursing) Susie Lum, who is also chief
supervisor of the program, said: "Professional nursing training in
Hong Kong has an international standard. It is time for us to take
on a training role for mainland nurses."
(China Daily July 31, 2007)