Lonna Milburn, PhD, RN¹, Alana Knudson-Buresh, PhD², Elizabeth Nichols, PhD¹, and Eleanor Dossenko, RN³. (1) College of Nursing, University of North Dakota, 10675 35th Street S.W., Dickinson, ND 58601, 701-260-0625, milburn@ctctel.com, (2) School of Medicine, University of North Dakota, 3120 Columbia Road, Grand Forks, ND 58201, (3) St. Aloisius Medical Center, 325 E. Brewster St., Harvey, ND 58341

Quietly, in 1997, the country of Turkmenistan embarked upon an initiative destined to transform the image, practice and impact of nursing while changing the environment towards primary health care for its population. Support for this initiative came from USAID funding, beginning in 1999, through a partnership between the Ministry of Health of Turkmenistan and the State of North Dakota. Now, five years later, several accomplishments are noteworthy: (1) Over three hundred nurses have completed an intensive primary health training curriculum sponsored by the Ministry of Health at the National Family Medicine Training Program which was established with the partnership, (2) Nurse graduates, working hand-in-hand with physicians and the community, are introducing a new environment of health promotion, health education, and health outreach in the clinics and homes throughout the capital city of Ashgabat, (3) Nurses graduates are integral partners and leaders in the Family Medicine Practice Center established two years ago as an experimental unit in primary care, (4) Nurses graduates transferred their new skill set to a Family Medicine Training Program on the Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan Border. Within five years a nucleus of reform minded nurses has emerged that will continue to influence the direction and environment of health care in Turkmenistan as it continues moving towards a primary care model of health delivery.

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Learning Objectives:

• Contrast the model of nursing in Turkmenistan before and after implementation of the Presidential Family Medicine/Nursing Initiative in 1997.
• Analyze the factors enhancing nurses' scope of work in the polyclinic and community after implementation of the Presidential Initiative.
• Describe the socializing process taking nurses from scrub women to primary health care providers in the community.

Keywords: Nurses, Global Education

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Project was a USAID-funded initiative in Turkmenistan.
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.