2004 IRISH SCIENTIST YEAR BOOK

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Athlone Institute of Technology
Aideen O'Connor & Mary McDonnell
Nursing in Athlone Institute of Technology






Nurse Education Building at AIT

Athlone Institute of Technology has been involved in nurse education since 1998 and the Department of Nursing & Health Sciences was formally established in 2002. The Department offers the core undergraduate programmes inclusive of a BSc in General Nursing and a BSc in Psychiatric Nursing, and has also, in combination with other institutions, developed a suite of specialist postgraduate nursing courses, due to start in September 2005. The Department will be accommodated in a new purpose-designed building from the end of 2004, and is currently defining its future teaching and research priorities within the context of the Institute's strategic plan. Immediate goals include new approaches to the teaching and assessment of clinical simulations, the application of student centred learning strategies such as project and problem based learning, research into Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Syndrome, wound healing/wound management, and qualitative invariants inherent of modern nursing educational processes. The roll out of expanded nurse education and research programmes in AIT must reflect a futurist view of some of the challenges influencing the knowledge and skill demands of practising nurses in and outside Ireland in an ever demanding multi cultural society. Obvious local drivers include:

  • demographic changes for professional staff

  • lrecruitment and retention challenges within a competitive global labour market

  • advances in diagnostics and new technologies including telemedicine and eHealth

  • increased burden of chronic diseases within an ageing community

  • the need to promote public health and solve health inequalities

  • the need to work in partnership with people and communities

  • increased pressure to centralise acute services

  • patient safety considerations and improving clinical standards

  • the need for sustainable, affordable services

  • educational requirements and competency based frameworks.

The Department of Nursing & Health Sciences intends to be at the heart of critical and discipline informing networks in Ireland and internationally, ensuring the currency, quality and relevance of all its activities.

Mary McDonnell, a lecturer on the staff of the Department of Nursing and Health Sciences in AIT, is currently conducting research as part of her Doctoral thesis into Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Syndrome in collaboration with Professor Tom Mathews, Department of Medicine, University College Dublin. Mary was the previous Registrar for the National Sudden Infant Death Register.

There are, in addition, new developments in relation to wound care and its management in association with the Bioscience and Polymer Research Departments within the Institute in collaboration with the Midland Health Board. This is an ideal innovative opportunity for both the Institute and the health care providers to undertake basic and applied research and further the success of clinical practice in wound care.

Contact: Ms Aideen O'Connor, Head of Department of Nursing & Health Sciences,
School of Science, Athlone Institute of Technology;
Tel: 09064 72838; E-mail: [email protected]