CAR Nurses Improve Proficiency in Health Promotion, Patient Education, and Communication at Almaty Workshop

Gail Osterbur (center) and Laure Lisk (far right) conduct a session at the Almaty workshop.

The Kazakhstan School of Public Health in Almaty was the setting for a Primary Healthcare Nursing workshop held August 14-17 for Central Asian nurses. Co-sponsored by AIHA and the Academy for Educational Development—an independent, non-profit organization based in Washington, DC—the training brought together 16 participants from AIHA partnerships in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The goal of the workshop was to provide attendees with beginning physical assessment skills in a primary healthcare polyclinic and to increase their proficiency in patient education, health promotion, and communication techniques.

Using lectures and hands-on sessions, workshop faculty provided participants with an overview of the history of nursing and taught them about preventing anemia and nutrition issues. The nurses then worked in groups of four create posters that promote the prevention of anemia.

Heading the workshop were Barbara Fisher, vice president and project coordinator, Laure Lisk, director of Women's and Family Services, and Gail Osterbur, director of Nursing, from Boulder Community Hospital in Boulder, Colorado, and Darlene Weis, associate professor at Marquette University's College of Nursing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.