Building Specialized Nursing Practice Capacity in Bangladesh: An Educational Program to Prepare Nurses to Care for Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant Patients in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

In 2012, the Minister of Health and other leaders in the Bangladesh government approached Massachusetts General Hospital to establish the country’s first bone marrow transplant program at Dhaka Medical College Hospital to serve the needs of the people of Bangladesh. Stated goals of this collaboration included a broad focus on the care of oncology patients with a specific emphasis on care of patients with hematologic malignancies and of women with gynecologic cancers. The purpose of this article is to describe the international nursing collaboration between Massachusetts General Hospital, Simmons College, the AK Khan Healthcare Trust in Dhaka, and Dhaka Medical College Hospital that was established to share nursing knowledge and to build specialized professional nursing capacities to deliver high-quality cancer care in the public sector. Over the past 3 years, through the educational programs that have been developed within this collaboration—the Enhanced Specialized Nurse Training Program—the Bangladeshi nurses have received continuing professional development based on Western standards of nursing and have been offering nursing care to patients who have undergone chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation. The challenges, opportunities, and outcomes of this international collaboration have been highly rewarding and mutually beneficial.

Oncology training and education initiatives in low and middle income countries: a scoping review

“…Twenty-five full-text articles were included in this scoping review (Figure 1). Of the 25 articles included, nine were quantitative studies [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25], eleven were qualitative studies [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and five were mixed method studies [37][38][39][40][41]. An overview of the selected articles is available in Table 1.…”

“…Fifteen of the twenty-five articles described an education initiative for physicians [ 17 , 20 , 23 – 25 , 27 , 29 , 30 , 33 , 35 – 40 ]. Four articles described an initiative for nurses [ 19 , 21 , 28 , 31 ], and one article was aimed at pharmacists [ 26 ]. Five articles described initiatives for more than one member of the health care team: three initiatives were for physicians and nurses [ 18 , 22 , 32 ], one was for physicians, nurses and pharmacists [ 41 ] and one was for physicians, nurses and other non-health professionals [ 34 ].…”

“…Thirteen initiatives were conducted in the Middle East/Africa [ 17 , 19 , 20 , 25 , 26 , 29 , 32 , 34 , 35 , 38 – 41 ], six in the Americas [ 18 , 23 , 24 , 27 , 28 , 31 ] and five in Asia/Pacific [ 21 , 30 , 33 , 36 , 37 ]. Project ECHO, a tele-mentoring programme for cervical cancer prevention was conducted in all three of these regions ( Figure 2 ) [ 22 ].…”

Hematopoietic Stem-Cell Transplantation in the Resource-Limited Setting: Establishing the First Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit in Bangladesh

“…To elevate the clinical competencies and professional status of the nurses in the DMCH HSCT unit, a comprehensive curriculum for the care of patients who undergo HSCT was developed by nurses and nurse practitioners at MGH and the Simmons College School of Nursing and Health Sciences. Training Bangladeshi nurses in HSCT management techniques was an extensive undertaking that is described in detail in a companion report by Barron et al 23 on the enhanced specialized nurses training program.…”

Nursing interventions in autologous stem cell transplantation for autoimmune diseases

“…Apart from the autoimmune diseases setting, some studies provide nursing care guidance on autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplantation for oncohaematological diseases. These orientations focus on different aspects of the treatment, such as central venous catheter management, nursing care for patients with graft versus host disease, training programmes for HSCT nurses, evidence‐based practice for HSCT patients under intensive care treatment, related‐and unrelated donor care issues, besides psychosocial demands from patients and families during HSCT (Barron et al., 2018; Castanho et al., 2020; Neumann, 2017; Polomeni et al., 2017; Santos et al., 2018; Young, Mansfield, & Mandoza, 2017; Zamanzadeh, Valizadeh, & Sayadi, 2013).…”