The
Pacific Emergency Nurse
Training (PENT)
The Pacific Emergency Nurse Training (PENT) is an intensive 10-day program designed to provide practical skills and external accreditation to frontline nurses in low-resource settings.
It was initially developed in Kiribati in consultation with a range of clinicians and first ran in Tarawa in 2017. Discussions with MoH there established that emergency nursing could only begin to develop as a specialty area in the country if the foundations of a nascent career pathway were laid down. The result was the development of a program in which five days of material adapted specifically for nurses in low-resource Pacific settings was combined with the WHO Basic Emergency Care Course (BEC). The Australian College of Emergency Nursing then accredited the combined 10-day program with a future goal of being creditable towards a diploma of emergency nursing at a regional University.
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The program focuses on structured assessment (ABCDE approach), structured communication (I-BAR), an understanding of core emergency presentations in the Pacific, care of special populations and treatment of NCDs. The format uses a range of teaching modalities, combining half-day lectures, discussions and quizzes with practical simulation and hands-on learning. Only treatments feasible in low-resource settings are used, and participants receive all taught materials as a printed manual and optional flash drive. Assessment is via multi-choice exam (WHO sets both pre and post-course MCQ) and practical testing in OSCE format. On successful completion of the course, participants receive a certificate of accreditation for 88 hours of CPD points and a course badge. Any participants who do not pass the course after two attempts receive a certificate of attendance.
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The course is designed to support successive waves of capacity building. The first part, described above, also provides an introduction to concepts of triage and disaster preparedness. It is anticipated that the second phase of the course will build on these skills, teaching advanced assessment skills and recognition of the deteriorating patient, as well as triage and disaster preparedness from a front-line nursing perspective.
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The initial course in Tarawa was supported by an ACEM Foundation grant in 2017. NZMTS currently supports the program.
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Bronwen Griffiths and Angie Gittus have developed the course in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders.