PhD in Leadership and Change alumna Dr. Ivy Sackey published her dissertation entitled, Preceptorship Practice in Healthcare Institutions in Ghana: A Situational Analysis. Preceptors play a vital role in supporting nursing/midwifery students and new employees’ transition and assimilation into their new role. Furthermore, with the increasing focus on educating more qualified nurses and midwives to meet health-related United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, there is a need for a more standardized and coordinated approach to preceptorship training.
Dr. Sackey, the former Head of the Nursing/Midwifery Training Institution in Ghana, observed first-hand that the system of preceptorship needs improvements. Published literature on preceptorship has shown that the practice plays a vital role in healthcare delivery. However, most of the existing literature preceptorship is from developed countries, with little research from developing countries like Ghana. Dr. Sackey’s study explored the practice of preceptorship in selected nursing/midwifery and healthcare institutions in Ghana. Situational analysis was used to examine the complex dynamics of the preceptorship program. It consists of three main procedural tools: situational maps, social worlds/arenas maps, and positional maps.
Several important factors were found to impact preceptorship in Ghana. Key ones were motivational (monetary) challenges, lack of training of preceptors, politicking related to the development of preceptorship manuals, supervision, and outdated procedure guidelines for on-the-job teaching students. The study offers a series of recommendations to improve preceptorship practice at micro, meso, and macro levels. Additionally, they may enable regulators and policy makers in Ghana to formulate policies leading to a more robust preceptorship program to strengthen the skills of nursing/midwifery profession.
Dr. Ivy Efua Sackey is a Fellow of the West African College of Nursing/Midwifery, a capacity builder, teacher, and an inspiring leader who is passionate about women’s health, reproductive, maternal, and child health issues. After gaining extensive clinical experience as a senior staff nurse/midwife in Ghana’s largest hospitals, she continued her education at the University of Cape Coast to enhance the teaching she was providing in the clinical area. This tilt transitioned her from hands-on clinical work to educating and mentoring students and nurses/midwifery professionals in the classroom on pediatrics, obstetrics /maternal health issues, and pharmacology, among others. She completed a master’s program in Population and Reproductive Health, International Health, at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. Sackey taught in the Sekondi Nurses and Midwifery Training Colleges (NMTC), after her QMU studies, continued teaching in Korle-Bu Nurses/ Midwifery Training College during which she trained and mentored over three thousand nurses/midwives. Dr. Sackey was the chairperson of the Maternal and Child Health faculty of the West African College of Nursing/Midwifery (WACNM), and then, substantive secretary of the Ghana chapter of WACNM. She has conducted research, written papers, presented speeches, and her interest in researching preceptorship stems from the experience gained while teaching at the training colleges and from working as the Head of the Nursing/Midwifery Training Institutions unit at the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Ghana.
