Among the professionals who make up the multidisciplinary team in charge of promoting health, preventing, treating and rehabilitating the person who has lost it, the Nurse has a predominant position, both for the knowledge that they must display and for their closeness to the sick person. and his family.
At the same time, in almost all countries there is usually a lack of these professionals. Not even the United States of America or the most developed nations of the European continent have achieved the completely adequate relationship between doctors, nurses and the real needs of their population; Latin America suffers from frank shortages and Colombia unfortunately does not deviate from such a regrettable scheme, which attempts are made to alleviate with the figure of “nursing assistants”, about whose poor preparation there is no doubt.
The efforts made in this part of the continent to attract more young people to the university nursing profession, to give them education and instruction of the breadth and quality that are already possible and then to offer them positions with the remuneration and “status” are still not enough. ” that truly correspond to the serious and transcendental responsibilities that do fall on their shoulders as soon as they graduate from their undergraduate degree and receive the proud “toca” that will be their badge from then on.
It is said with ample reason that if there were a lack of professional nurses trained in serious university programs as has been customary since the last century, we doctors would have to do more in our work and even then we would hardly obtain the excellent results that today benefit so many patients, and that in In the field of prevention and promotion we would return to the insufficient conditions of past times, fortunately overcome.
Therefore, any effort aimed at maintaining the quality of nursing professionals deserves applause and full support. Publications like this magazine, which study the most current and important topics to provide useful recommendations and show the results of well-analyzed experiences, are very notable contributions to scientific bibliography in the Spanish language.
The issue that reaches readers today and corresponds to the month of December 2002, contains works and reflections from whose reading valuable lessons emerge. Nursing care in cardiac catheterization, academic evaluations seen from the nurse’s perspective, nursing education considered as an “innovative art” and the approach to the art and science of caring, are important reading that anyone should consider mandatory. linked to these transcendental terrains.
On the other hand, the article on early diagnosis and the design of a stroke precaution program and the second part of the “Guide to Asepsis” are works of immediate practical application whose benefits are easily understood.
It is not easy to sustain a scientific publication in Colombia; In addition to the recognized financial insufficiency, difficulties in obtaining well-written and timely delivered material are usually added. The management and editorial staff of NURSING UPDATES have been achieving this with such success that they have reached the end of their fifth annual volume. It seems pertinent to call on all Colombian professionals, and especially those who carry out teaching functions with such brilliance, to include among their concerns that of contributing to ensuring that these pages continue to have, hopefully for many years, the periodicity, quality and validity what they boast about.
Juan Mendoza-Vega, MD.
President
National Academy of Medicine of Colombia
