Janet Marsden wins RCN / Novartis Opthalmic Nursing Awards

Published: 12 December 2012

Janet Marsden describes the winning project

My paper describes an initiative to assist ophthalmic nurses in the developing world to access comprehensive, relevant and current information in order to help them to update and develop their practice, for the ultimate benefit of their patient populations.

Educating nurses inevitably has an impact on patient care and there is a significant body of research which links nurse education to levels of patient care and patient morbidity.

While ophthalmic nurses in the developed world have many resources available to help them learn and keep up to date, our colleagues in less privileged areas are often unable to find material to help them in their practice. There are many constraints to accessing resources. Textbooks are expensive, as are journals, and most are in English. The internet may not be available and is of variable quality.

In an attempt to address some of these issues, a number of resources have been developed by a group of ophthalmic nurses who work and volunteer to work with an international charity, ORBIS.

ORBIS has a full-time staff of two nurses, supplemented by volunteer nurses from all over the globe who give their time to work on ORBIS’s programmes. Over the last two years, a number of resources have been developed and these have been translated into several languages.

The nursing team includes a faculty made up of many volunteers who have been involved in writing resources, designing teaching sessions, testing and finalising, researching, collaborating, proofreading, translating and ensuring that resources are fit for purpose in paper form for giving or posting to nurses and in electronic form for downloading or emailing so that the widest possible dissemination is achieved.

I have been involved in planning and implementing parts of the project, in designing and preparing resources and in acting as a resource for international colleagues.

All this work is being undertaken by nurses who have volunteered to take it on, who are undertaking full time roles as well and who are passionately committed to the education of ophthalmic nurses internationally, for the ultimate benefit of all the patients they work with.

The international scope of the ORBIS nursing team means that these texts have been translated by ophthalmic nurses who speak the languages as a first language.

There’s still lots of work to do and the project will probably never be completed – there’s far too much information to share! We know the resources are being used internationally. Our new links feed back to us and evaluation is ongoing.

Janet Marsden
Professor of Ophthalmology and Emergency Care
Faculty of Health, Psychology and Social Care

Find out more about ORBIS by visiting the ORBIS website.