Health Practitioner Cautions Excellence Nursing School Graduates
PHOTO: 9th Graduating Ceremony of the Excellence School of Professional and Vocational Institute Inc. in Paynesville.
A Liberian health practitioner has urged health practitioners and future health practitioners not to allow the nursing profession to be influenced by anyone.
According to the Liberian health practitioner, Abel G. Jonkatornon, the use of parental influence and friends as a means of selecting a profession, especially in the health sector, is a very dangerous one.
The Liberian clinician and health researcher sounded the warning when he served as guest speaker of the 9th Graduating Ceremony of the Excellence School of Professional and Vocational Institute Inc. in Paynesville.
He warned against friends and relatives using their influence as a means of choosing a profession for students and those wanting to practice in any given field of studies.
“Let me say this to you the graduates and parents or guardians, it is not good for one’s profession selection to be influenced by a friend or any relative,” Mr. Jonkatornon stressed.
“It is good for an individual to willingly choose career professions on what to do and what not to do; in other words, follow your hearts and not what your father or mother wants you to study,” he averred.
The Registered Nurse (RN) and a graduate of the Cuttington University Graduate of Professional Studies’ words of caution steamed from the background where many are asked by their parents, relatives or friends to follow a career that they do not have a fundamental knowledge about or passion for.
According to him, if one chooses a profession that he or she does not have fundamentals about, it becomes risky and dangerous for both the individual and the society.
He said, many at times, some Liberians choose to venture into the nursing profession because either a relative in the United States told them to do so saying, nursing has attractive salary grades in the US.
Mr. Jonkatornon also added that others go into the nursing field because others told them to choose the profession on ground that it has fast money and or they are promised future jobs even if the person asked has no passion for said profession.
Located in the compound of the Bethesda AG Church along the 72nd Boulevard, the Excellence School of Professional and Vocational Institute Inc. has continued to provide professional skill training opportunities to Liberians, especially young people in the nursing professional and others.
The guest speaker speaking on the topic, ‘Who I want to become after graduation from High School then used the opportunity and gave few important pieces of advice to the nine graduates who made it to the promised land despite being in a class of forty members.
“As you go out today, please know and always remember that an RN is superior no matter you learn and therefore, you must always respect them; know your term of reference (TOR) or scope of profession (SOP) and never pretend to know all because every level of study has limitation,” he pointed out.
According to him, there are some health practitioners who feel they know all only because they graduated from one level category in the nursing profession to another.
It is not enough to feel complacent, but to be focus and strive for greater and higher height, the Liberian clinician said.
Inclosing, the RN thanked the head of the institution, Chris Myers and all the staff members for patience in running the school while at the same time encouraging them to keep focus and persevere as a way to achieving the outmost goal.
He also called on the parents and relatives of the graduates as well as the public to speak out on the behalf of health practitioners in Liberia in general for improved salaries so as to help provide quality health services to the Liberian society.
Mr. Jonkatornon lamented that unqualified individuals in Liberia make swooping and huge salaries because of political and or societal connections and affiliations while a trained professional RNs and degree holders make less than two hundred United States Dollars as a take home salary thus making them to live below poverty line as their children are forced to go to sub-standard schools in the quest for education.
He encouraged the graduates and their parents not to see the holding of a Nurse Aid Certificate as the end or being sufficient, but that they should see it as the beginning.
“If you will depend on Nurse Aid certificate and its salary as being satisfactory and depend on its salary to improve your life, it will be a big mistake if not a lie because being a clinician alone can’t earn you the expected salary to live an improved living standards as you think,” he advised.
“To you the parents and sponsors, one best way to help these ones who are graduating today is to help have a drug store or pharmacy for them as a means of using income from there to further their education or studies,” Liberian health practitioners concluded.
Meanwhile, the head of the institution, Chris Myers, impressed by the speech, words of motivation for the school and the graduates has vowed to do his best in helping to always prepare potential health practitioners and other professionals to serve their country.
He made the statement in brief remarks during the graduation program last weekend. Report by Esau J. Farr esaufarr1980@gmail.com/0770838175/0886838175