Dear Florence Network colleagues,
On behalf of Ege University Nursing faculty Organizing Committee, it is a great pleasure for us to invite you to attend the 29th Florence Network Annual Meeting and Conference 2022. We were hoping for a face to face meeting held in Türkiye (Turkey) in the beautiful city of İzmir 9 th and 10 th of May 2022. However, due to the unpredictable landscape with COVID-19 restrictions and Omicron Variant FN board has decided that a virtual meeting is the safest and most realistic way forward.
The Ege University and Nursing Faculty were established in 1955. It followed up to a long and successful activity for Nursing Education, which is celebrating 67 years from its establishment. Ege University Nursing Faculty currently has more than 100 expert academic personnel in their fields. As many people have still remembered, we hosted at FNAM in 2010. We are obviously disappointed that we can’t come together face-to-face, but our programme will remain the same and the FN annual meeting will have an interactive virtual platform. Our faculty, as well as our organization, has the entire infrastructure necessary for a successful meeting.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects the way things are done in life, including nursing education in all countries. Many schools responded quickly by initially doing face-to-face lessons online to prevent and reduce community spread. This was followed by the transformation from face-to-face teaching to online/virtual presentation of the theoretical aspect of the curriculum. Online learning has become a solution to complete the curriculum; however, it caused deficiencies in clinical practice training not to be completed. Virtual simulations and high-accuracy simulation equipment are still a problem for developing countries as there are difficulties with access and cost. The return of students to the schools and clinical field in their education presented different challenges for the safety of patients and students.
The theme for FNAM 2022 is “Nursing and Midwifery education: a new era after the pandemic”.
The COVID-19 pandemic taught the world a lesson about the importance of the health care system and the critical role of nursing. Health care was the system most significantly impacted, and the role of nurses within that system emerged as a key. Many people recognized for the first time why nurses are important not just to do patient care but also to community health. So the pandemic crisis has been a transformational time for the field of nursing. While the pandemic has rearranged nearly every aspect of health care, the impacts on nursing may be the most profound. All these changes have made it inevitable to renew the nursing education programs and clinical practice content.
Thus, we are quite excited to discuss this transformational time defined as "a new era after pandemic". We hope this meeting will give us a chance to share our experiences and future planning. We believe that this meeting provides valuable opportunities to extend and strengthen the nursing and midwifery knowledge together in an international view.
For any question regarding meeting, you are kindly invited to contact the organization committee at florencenetwork.ege@gmail.com and visit our website https://theflorencenetwork.ege.edu.tr
It would be our honor to host the FNAM 2022.
We look forward to meeting with you.
Yours sincerely,
On behalf of the Ege University Nursing Faculty Organization Committee
Prof. Dr. Meryem YAVUZ van GIERSBERGEN
Ege University Nursing Faculty FLECO- FNAM 2022 Coordinator
