Within the scope of Nurses Week organised with the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Turkish Nurses Association, the program “Our Nurses, Our Future: The Economic Power of Care” was held on May 16, 2024, at the Central Library Sezai Karakoç Hall.
Vice-Rector Prof. Dr. Ömer Küçük, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences Prof. Dr. Abdulkadir Tuna, Chief Physician of Kastamonu Training and Research Hospital (KEAH) Prof. Dr. Zafer Ergül, and many academic staff and students attended.
Prof. Dr. Ömer Küçük, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences Prof. Dr. Abdulkadir Tuna, and Chief Physician of Kastamonu Training and Research Hospital Prof. Dr. Zafer Ergül made the opening speeches of the program, which started with the National Anthem and a moment of silence.
Prof. Dr. Abdulkadir Tuna, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, who took the floor first for the opening speech, underlined that the nursing profession is an honourable profession that serves people to help people regain their health and said that nursing is an applied discipline that deals with the health of society, individuals, and families from birth to death.
Prof. Dr. Tuna concluded his speech by saying, “As Kastamonu University Faculty of Health Sciences, we, as Kastamonu University Faculty of Health Sciences, offer and will continue to offer all the opportunities we can to raise individuals who are scientifically, culturally, and socially equipped in the process of educating the nurses of the future, who care about human rights and ethical values required by this sacred profession, who can communicate effectively, who have problem-solving research skills, who can follow national and international professional development, who protect patient rights, and who respect individual values and beliefs.”
Prof. Dr. Zafer Ergül, Chief Physician of KEAH, who took the floor after Prof. Dr. Tuna, said that nurses in the hospital provide excellent support to both patients and health workers, reminding them that nurses are sometimes brother and sister confidants to patients and sometimes to health workers, and said that they should not only commemorate them on Nurses' Day but also answer the question of how to solve the current problems of nurses in the age of artificial intelligence.
Reminding that the history of nursing dates back to Mesopotamia, Prof. Dr. Ergül underlined that the foundations of modern nursing in our country were laid by Florence Nightingale, who was in our country during the Crimean War, and that she was successful in sanitation studies during the war period. Prof. Dr. Ergül concluded her words by commemorating the health workers who died during the pandemic.
After Prof. Dr. Ergül, Kastamonu Training and Research Hospital Health Care Services Manager Saide Pakize Çetin took the floor,.
In his speech, Çetin said that the World Health Organization has determined 2022 as the World Nurses Year and expressed the needs of the nursing profession with the words: “It shows how the global pandemic experienced at the international level has affected public health and that it is necessary to invest in the nursing profession to train qualified nurses, to create specialties in nursing, and to strengthen and advance the comprehensive nursing profession continuously.”
Vice-Rector Prof. Dr. Ömer Küçük, who took the floor after Çetin, stated in his speech that the nursing profession is a sacred, patient, disciplined, solution-oriented profession and concluded his speech by saying, “The most sacred aspect of this duty is the protection, maintenance, and development of the physical and mental health of society, and of course, it is an important duty to raise future healthy generations.”.
After the opening speech, in the program's first session organised for Nurses Week, Azize Atlı Özbaş introduced the Turkish Nurses Association. Then Aysun Bekdemir, Emergency Service Nurse at KEAH, explained the history of nursing from the past to the present.
The last speaker of the session, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Havva Kaçan, presented “ICN Theme: Our Nurses, Our Future: The Economic Power of Care.”. After the first session, our university's RAKSAN Folk Dance Ensemble group took the stage and presented a folk dance show to the audience's appreciation.
In the second part of the program, in the session titled “Special Branch Nursing,” moderated by Saide Pakize Çetin, KEAH Chemotherapy Unit Oncology Nurse Ayşegül Esra Bektaş, Daday State Hospital Emergency Room Nurse Sevda Çelik, and KEAH Diabetes Nurse Nurcan Çiftçi shared their experiences and solutions to the difficulties they experienced in their professional lives.
In the program's third session, KEAH Occupational Health and Safety Specialist Mehtap Demirci Çelebi made presentations on Artificial Intelligence in Nursing, KEAH Cardiovascular Surgery Service Nurse Sercan Yanık on Nursing and Robots, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Filiz Özel Çakır on the reflections of the digital world on nursing care.
In the last part of the program, Ezgi Akman, Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse at KEAH, made a presentation on electronic health registration, and Çiğdem Özdemir Özleyen, Director of Nursing Services at Güven Health Group, gave information about new models in patient delivery.
The program ended with a presentation of the public health course practices of the nursing department of the Faculty of Health Sciences students.
