International nursing education: Istanbul, Turkey

To assist Turkish nurses in reaching educational standards and goals, an international neonatal program was developed that would incorporate a train-the-trainer module. The primary goal was to develop and teach a neonatal intensive care course while exposing identified trainers to content, theory, teaching strategies, and concepts. The expectations of the future trainers were to use the knowledge they obtained from the course to enable them to provide future neonatal intensive care courses and serve as experts in the field of neonatal nursing. The achievement of this program was a direct reflection of a collaborative effort between two diverse cultures with the same goal of improving quality of nursing care delivered to high-risk neonates. Striving for nursing care excellence means continuously learning and keeping pace with the newest technologies and trends. Turkish nurses now have one more way of maintaining current knowledge and professionalism.