Ludwigshafen, 02.07.2018

Great interest in nursing education symposium - symposium also marks the end of the teaching activities of conference initiator and organizer Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Sahmel at the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, who will retire in September.

On Thursday, June 28, 2018, a nursing pedagogical symposium on the topic "Past, Present and Future of Nursing Pedagogy" took place at the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Sahmel, Professor of Nursing Education and Nursing Science at the Department of Social and Health Services, more than 200 specialists and managers as well as teachers in the field of nursing and nursing education sought a professional exchange on the currently much discussed topic of nursing education.

After the greeting by university president Professor Dr. Peter Mudra and Professor Dr. Andreas pure, Prodekan of the specialist area social and health service, care expert and meeting initiator Professor Dr. Karl-Heinz Sahmel gave an introduction to the topic. In doing so, he drew a wide arc from the beginnings of the relatively young discipline to its currently uncertain future. "In the 19th century, the training of nurses was the responsibility of physicians and matrons with no educational background. In addition to imparting specialized knowledge, the training served to build character and was subject to the primacy of service at the bedside or sacrificial service to the patient," Sahmel says. Even today, this idea continues to have an effect and shapes the ideological conception of nursing and nursing education. Thus, the assertion that nursing education is far removed from practice is a much-heard argument to this day, he said. In the 1980s, Sahmel continues, the idea of nursing as a "vocation" that had dominated for many decades, with a clear subordination of nurses to the medical profession as propagated, for example, by the Catholic nun Liliane Juchli in her nursing textbook, which has become a classic, is slowly crumbling. Resistance is also stirring among so-called teaching nurses to being treated as "second-class teachers" - with no degree, no job title protection, and significantly lower social status and pay than vocational school teachers. Driven by a memorandum published by the Robert Bosch Foundation in 1992, a broad discussion emerged in the 1990s about the academization of nursing teacher qualifications, which led to the establishment of corresponding courses of study at colleges and universities and a corresponding plurality of academic teaching in this field. Moreover, with the changeover to bachelor's and master's degree programs in the course of the Bologna reform, the idea of efficiency is gaining greater weight. "Where do we go from here in view of the nursing emergency, the Nursing Professions Act and the increasing shortage of skilled workers in the field of nursing teaching as well? Where will the discipline of nursing pedagogy be located in the future between professional pedagogy, critical educational science and nursing didactics?" - Sahmel gave these questions to the plenum for discussion.

In workshops led by Prof. Dr. Mechthild Löwenstein from the Esslingen University of Applied Sciences, Dr. Armin Leibig and Yvonne Zenz from the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, the key questions raised by Sahmel and the topics of pedagogical principles, competencies at the heart of qualifications, nursing training and the nursing crisis were examined from various perspectives and brought together in the concluding panel discussion. In the process, the participants came to the conclusion that the much-cited "temporary crisis in nursing" had already reached the status of a permanent emergency. Relief could be created in the context of digitalization and mechanization. The participants also saw competence orientation - such as reflective competence, transfer learning and exemplary teaching in both theory and nursing practice - and meeting at eye level as a step in the right direction. At the same time, the nurses themselves would have it in their hands to shape change. Nevertheless, a certain skepticism about the use of new techniques and against an exact separation and measurement of competencies was noticeable at the conference: Human dignity must continue to be the principle of all nursing care and the subject of pedagogical action, according to the broad consensus. Nursing pedagogy should and could also contribute to improving the overall situation in nursing: "Cooperation and standing together between teachers and learners is important; so is strengthening society's view of nursing and building up teaching at different levels of severity," said Dr. Armin Leibig, summing up the results of the workshop he chaired. He also said that cooperation between theory and practice should be further intensified through learning collaborations, as nursing management and nursing education are interested in reaching a consensus. The group led by Yvonne Zenz addressed the important pedagogical question of the legitimacy of "forming" "attitudes" of nursing trainees.

With this year's symposium, the long-time organizer and initiator, Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Sahmel, who will be retired in September, officially takes his leave as a university lecturer from the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences. However, he will continue to be active as the author of specialist publications on nursing and nursing education and as a lecturer at the Steinbeis Academy in Marburg and at the Institute for Nursing Science at UMIT in Hall, Austria. The Nursing Pedagogy Conference will also be held again next year. Dr. Armin Leibig, the designated successor to the professorship of Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Sahmel, will then be responsible for management and organization.

Contact:
Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences
Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Sahmel
Professor of Nursing Education and Nursing Science
Department of Social and Health Services
Tel. 0621/5203-550
E-mail: karl.sahmel@hwg-lu.de