q Who can apply for a course in nursing?
Anyone who has completed Class XII. The auxiliary nurse and midwife or ANM course and general nursing and midwifery or GNM course are open to students from all three streams — science, commerce and arts. However, for a generic BSc in nursing and higher degrees, physics, chemistry and biology are mandatory.
q What is the course duration?
ANM is a two-year diploma course, GNM is a three-year diploma course, a BSc is three years, post-basic BSc is a two-year programme for those who have completed GNM, and master’s is a two-year programme.
q What should one look out for while college hunting?
Students in West Bengal should check if the college is affiliated to the Indian Nursing Council. If it is, that means the college has the approval of the West Bengal health and family welfare department, the necessary permits from the West Bengal Nursing Council and is affiliated to the West Bengal University of Health Sciences.
q What does the training entail?
It involves theory, in-depth practical classes in the laboratories and hands-on training at select hospitals. At the Priyamvada Birla Institute of Nursing in Calcutta, we teach students theory in the first year, including physiology. There are also basic practical classes where they learn about oral care, sleeping positions, steam inhalation, bed making, carbolisation or cleaning of beds and even massaging the back so a patient does not develop bed sores. In the first year itself, we send students to hospitals for hands-on training. From the second year, they are trained in bedside nursing — dressing wounds, taking care of patients with tracheostomy, handling a catheter. By the third year, they learn to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, analyse lung sounds and count foetal heartbeat.
q Which hospitals do they intern in?
We send our students to Belle Vue Clinic, which is our own medical facility, the Bidhannagar Sub-Divisional Hospital and the Calcutta National Medical College. A teacher always accompanies the students.
q Is there some kind of behavioural training as well?
Of course. All our students learn to be polite and courteous. We also pay attention to their mental health and wellbeing. For example, students taking psychiatry during their advanced courses have to deal with patients with depression, those who turn violent at times and those with mood disorders.
q What happens after one is awarded the basic degree?
In our case, Belle Vue absorbs the students. They can also go for government and private jobs. My students are job-ready by the time they leave college. I can safely tell you that our post-basic BSc students have worked in the labour room and delivered at least 20 babies on their own during their training period.
q What are the available specialisations?
Students can go for a master’s in nursing, an MPhil and a PhD. There are five kinds of specialisations — medical and surgical, obstetrics and gynaecology, child healthcare nursing, psychiatry, and community health and nursing. In the last case, students are required to go door-to-door in rural areas and panchayat blocks in urban areas, and give preventive care to patients. They also educate them about nutrition.
q What is the scope of nursing these days?
There is a demand for nurses both here and abroad. I often get emails from hospitals in Germany, Australia and New Zealand seeking nurses. Earlier, doctors used to go abroad but now it is the nurses who go abroad. You need to have the ambition and respect the job you do. The rest will follow.
