Empowering SCI Care: A Global Nursing Initiative with Debbie Green, Tracey Tattam, Veronika Geng and Letitia Graves

Welcome to  SCI Care: What really Matters, Edinburgh conversations. This is a series of discussions recorded live during the #ISCoS2023 meeting. 

Our guests include Debbie Green, the Chair of the Nurse Special Interest Group, Tracey Tattam, a renowned nurse educator, Veronika Geng from Germany, and Letitia Graves from Houston share valuable insights and their involvement in the International Spinal Court Society's Special Interest Group. One of the focal points of discussion is the group's innovative efforts to launch a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) designed to uplift SCI nursing on a global level.

The opinions of our host and guests are their own; ISCoS does not endorse any individual viewpoints, given products or companies.

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This show is brought to you by ISCoS - you can follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn

The SCI Care: What really Matters podcast aims to provide valuable insights and the most up-to-date information for those providing care to people with spinal cord injury (SCI) worldwide. The vision of the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS) is to "facilitate healthy and inclusive lives for people with spinal cord injury or dysfunction globally".

Partnership and collaboration are key to achieving this vision. Our episodes include expert guests, persons with lived experience and representatives from the industry supporting SCI care.

We invite you to:

ISCoS 2024 will take place in Antwerp, Belgium 22 - 25 September 2024

Contact us directly with any questions or comments at iscos@associationsltd.co.uk

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to our bonus episode of SCI Care. What really matters the Edinburgh Conversations. I am Dr Ali Jumous, the President of the International Spine Court Society. You are about to hear a selection of interviews recorded live in Edinburgh during the course of the 60 Seconds Excos Scientific Meeting. Each bonus track will have discussions with speakers, delegates, partners, Excos Committee chairs and teams attending the Excos 2023. Join us to find out what the hot topics of the day are within SCI Care. We hope you enjoy listening.

Speaker 3: 0:48

Hi, I'm Debbie Green and I'm the Chair of the Nurse Special Interest Group at Excos, and I'm here with some of my colleagues today who are from the Government panel of the Special Interest Group.

Speaker 4: 0:58

Yes, I'm Veronica Gang. I'm from Germany, I'm a specialist in SCI nursing and I'm in the sick group since one and a half year. And I'm happy to see our group in person because the other time we always have Zoom conferences, which is sometimes difficult because of the time slots of the different countries.

Speaker 5: 1:20

I'm Tracy Tatum, nurse Educator from the Spinal Injuries Unit in Brisbane, cusis, and I've also been in the group for about 18 months and this is our first time face-to-face, which is really exciting, and involved in the MOOC as well.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Yeah, I'm Latisha Graves. I'm coming from Houston, texas in the US. I'm an assistant professor, I teach nursing and I have a. My background is in spinal cord nursing. I'll say I used to work on a spinal cord injury unit for a retired military person, so the VA. So I'm excited to be here to meet everyone in person and this is actually my second ISCAF and my second nurse day, so I know today was like a really excellent. We had great takeaways. So you want to talk a little bit more about your presentation from today because you guys did such a great job.

Speaker 3: 2:17

So this morning Randy and myself did a joint presentation of the MOOC the massive online course for nurses that we as a group developed and delivered at the beginning of this year so between February and March of this year and we presented some of the findings from that and it was really well received by the nurses today at the study day, and they also offered lots of suggestions about how we could get more people involved and how we could promote it more, because actually quite a lot of people today said they didn't. They hadn't heard of ELER and SEI, they hadn't heard of a MOOC and they certainly hadn't heard of our group, and so they were suggesting different ways that we could promote that more, which I've written all down, so we'll talk about that a bit later. But Letitia, you're going to be doing a presentation also on Wednesday.

Speaker 2: 3:13

Yeah, so I'm going to present the other side of what you and Randy presented today. So mine will be more results focused and just looking at who all attended, by country. And you know, again, as you said, to kind of make sure that we're targeting places where we're not getting the word out as much and getting a little into the details, a little bit more about our nursing special interest group, like how long we've been around, what we're doing and what we're going to be moving to do. So I think you guys talked a little bit more on the back end about how the setup went and getting prepared for it, and I'm just going to give a really high level overview and what the takeaways were. So mine will be a lot more brief, but I'm sure it'll be fine.

Speaker 3: 4:00

I mean, we had we had four to five minutes this morning which was right quite a long time, and I've got eight or like ten minutes. But we did ask the audience questions about what they might like to see in another look if we did another one, and they didn't come up with anything very clear except things around manual handling and lock rolling and things like that. They were quite keen on those kinds of final precautions.

Speaker 4: 4:28

Yes, I think that. But also they give us some advice how we could make more, be more present with the MOOC, that all the people get information that they're in MOOC and that they can participate. And I think one part was, for example, that we used social media much more and that we could make post-hours or handouts, that in the clinic they could hang it out, that the nurses be aware that there is a MOOC, they could participate. And one idea what they have that we shouldn't do a MOOC about five weeks should be an open time slot that you can do it Starting in the second week or starting in the fifth week and then start at the end or go to the end at the first week from the course. So that was one idea from them that they can't do it in these five weeks but put over a longer time where it's never ending an education tour.

Speaker 3: 5:29

But, as Randy said, that involves people, us being more being present for a longer period.

Speaker 5: 5:38

You have to help to be there to do those.

Speaker 3: 5:41

Yeah, and so not only is it that the participants would have longer time, but it means that we, as coordinators, would have to commit to a longer time, because right now they have the ability to have us live during the big busy period of those webinars.

Speaker 4: 5:59

Otherwise we could do that. We make a video of that and we can take it in the side of a webinar or something like this. I think the idea is interesting that they are not fixed on five weeks but running over a whole year, and then we can look how many people are participating.

Speaker 2: 6:18

The only thing with that, which I think that is a great idea, because I've seen the feedback about that and maybe we still have it as a shorter time frame, because I feel like if we let people do it for months at a time, they'll start it and never finish it, and we want them to finish it.

Speaker 3: 6:35

I think I agree If it'll just drag on and people won't do it, whereas if you've got a more structured time frame, like it has to close by this date.

Speaker 2: 6:43

So you have to finish everything. So they have to do it.

Speaker 3: 6:46

And, of course, one of the big problems and it was discussed many times and just like with us on our Zoom meetings is that it's all different time frames, and so there's people from Germany, denmark, usa, australia. Everybody's trying to find a time that's suitable, and there was a quote there from somebody, a nurse from the Philippines, who said it's one o'clock in the morning for our time frame. It's not the best time to learn, no, and so it would be great to have those kind of things going on at that time.

Speaker 2: 7:23

But, I guess, having them recorded the live, we can have a few things to say in different sessions, because I think the numbers of participants was not really high for the live sessions.

Speaker 4: 7:36

Maybe because it was the first time, but I think seven people. Once it was 10 people, so it was not recognized for that.

Speaker 3: 7:47

And another interesting thing this morning I found that they talked about the interprofessional or the interdisciplinary sessions that were in another way that we did some parts together with other professions and then going to the specialty of the nurses and the therapists, for example, a lot of occupational therapists joined our mood because they haven't got one of their own, and so there was a lot of discussion around whether we should have multidisciplinary group rather than just a nursing and physio session.

Speaker 2: 8:18

Yeah, I think that's a good point, and I also think too that because I was having this discussion with someone else about preparing nurses in nursing school, the pre-licensure students that if they don't work in rehab settings or with spinal cord patients or anyone with mobility challenges, they don't know what they don't know, so it's like they need to almost have another kind of training. So I think we should have something that's specific to nurses, because we're interacting with the patients all day in a very different way than maybe the physios or the OT, but it should. Maybe we have a module to speak to the interdisciplinary role of us.

Speaker 5: 8:57

That enhances the projects, like whether it is working with the OTs or the physios, with our gats to the patient.

Speaker 4: 9:07

Yeah, that's one part of it, I think we have parts they are the same from the different views of professions.

Speaker 4: 9:13

For example, the psychological aspects, right From the different professions, what happens and I think it's a difference, whether you're a physiotherapist and you see the patients once a day for one hour or twice a day for half an hour a day, and the nurse always changing. I think there's a lot of differences in how you see the patients, how you can talk to the patients, and the nurse is always doing work and talking to the patients and the physiotherapist is alone with one patient for half an hour, for example. So it could be interesting to make some parts together and I think, the part of, for example, if you look to pain, what could do the physiotherapy, what could do the occupational therapy, what could do the doctors with this topic and who could take this part of it.

Speaker 4: 10:03

I think that would be an interesting idea and we should think about it.

Speaker 3: 10:10

So the plan is, or the hope is, that some stage next year we will run another mood. We haven't got a date for that yet. I'm sure there's going to be plenty to be announced or to be agreed, because there's going to be again more work involved in that as well. But what else are you thinking of or hoping to get out of this conference this week?

Speaker 2: 10:39

So one of it's really funny one of our collaborators. He's across the country, but this will be the first time that we get to meet in person as well, so just like I'm going to meet you all we meet by Zoom, so we're used to the bring box bunches you know the boxes.

Speaker 2: 10:55

So it will be exciting to see him. He's going to be a keynote, so I'm looking forward to his talk. He does a lot with data informatics and using the electronic health records to do spinal cord injury research, so I'll be interested to see what he's proposing and what that looks like on maybe a global scale. But I think just overall I enjoy this conference because it is multidisciplinary and I get a chance to see what everyone is doing in their own backyards and how we can make collaborations. So I'm looking forward to collaborations, I agree.

Speaker 5: 11:28

It's the collaborations, to see what other people are doing, but also to see how everyone works together across all of the different countries and everything. I think it is a big team focus where I come from and everything which is, like you say, talking to the physios and the OTs to address pain issues and the psychosocial aspects. So, like you say, the nurses are doing everything with the patient in the bathroom and that's when they find out more things so that then they can go back to the physios or the OTs to see further assistance with those patients. So I think it is learning from each other, which is definitely this today Is this your first visit to a physical conference.

Speaker 5: 12:13

Maybe 30 years ago I attended and I think it was called IMSOL. It was called Imsok. I did attend one of those. There's one so long time ago, but I have attended some ants, costs and everything like that, but this is definitely. Oh, it's great to have you here, tracy.

Speaker 4: 12:32

Thank you.

Speaker 4: 12:34

Yes, for me I always could go to the ISCOS when ISCOS is in Europe, because then my boss says, yes, it's okay, but it's not okay to travel two days for three days conference with another thing, and I was thinking the networking about borders together for the same topic. That's very interesting for me to see people live from them. I read the articles. I've had a lot of information about their work, but I don't know the people. And here I see, oh, that's, I read this article of them for her, and so I think it's interesting to see all the people who have some networking, have some ideas and talking ideas with others, what they are thinking about these ideas, and so I think it's a good time For me. I'm here with two colleagues from Germany, so that's also interesting to see them for a longer time.

Speaker 3: 13:25

Otherwise, you have a phone call or you have a Zoom meeting with them, and so we enjoy all the time here to be together here and the multi-professional aspects of the other and I really enjoy that just catching up with colleagues as well, because now I don't work in the spinal centre but a lot of people from the spinal centre are here, so it's given me the opportunity to catch up with a lot of my previous colleagues. So that's really good. And I actually always like looking at the posters, the poster exhibition, because it's a good way of just being able to get a quick idea of what lots of people are doing. This year I've even managed to install the app on my phone and look at it, which is a real bonus for me. I've not been made technical. It's a real bonus.

Speaker 1: 14:18

We hope you have enjoyed listening to our bonus collection of Edinburgh Conversation from ISCOS 2023. As always, you can listen to these episodes and all episodes from the podcast provider of your choice. If you have any questions or suggestions, we would love to hear from you. Email them to admin at iscosorguk. Iscos also invites you to the 63rd ISCOS Scientific Anyone Meeting from the 22nd to the 25th of September 2024. To save the date, more details will follow on the 2024 themes submitting an abstract and early birth registration. Thank you for listening.