Nursing Research and Some Issues

Nursing research in the Philippines is growing very slow.

While there are now 49 schools offering graduate (MAN, MSN, MN) and post-graduate (Ph.D and DNS) degrees in the country. The ability of this sector to sustain its little gains remains doubtful.

I am saying this remark because there is no such opportunities available in the country in the last ten years (between 1998 and 2007) in terms of nursing research conference, nursing research publications and nursing research society.

The natural inclination of our nurse researchers after obtaining their graduate or post graduate degrees has been to stand still and wait for opportunities to come.

I thought that our nursing education (and consequently, our nursing research) is the best in this part of the globe. However, the reality is simply opposite. Our research capability is already been lagging behind our neighbors such as Taiwan, Hongkong, Korea, Japan and even, Thailand. Evidence: browse the international peer-reviewed nursing journals.

Our latest international nursing conferences in the Philippines were dominated by Filipinos as plenary speakers, oral and poster presentors. So, practically we have not seen the best of the outside because each one of us is flaunting his or her work. In other words, outperforming one another at the expense of another Filipino nurse. Sad reality.

I have been a nurse for 15 years and had never attended a PNA National Convention because of negative statements and experiences shared by colleagues that such event was fraught with verbal tussles and overriding insults. I was told that this incident still happened during the last national convention. Instead of providing avenues to present "simple" research works, either orally and poster, the PNA bigwigs have kept on hurling invectives. This is really bad.

When will this scenario stops...