The 18th East Asian Forum of Nursing Scholars (EAFONS) was held on February 5-6, 2015 in Taipei, Taiwan. Poster presentations were held on the 6th, and the four DNGL students showed their poster presentations of the past researches and the training overseas. It was the first presentation at an international conference for most of the students, but they held discussions with nursing professionals from East Asia with an avid interest in disaster nursing.

Two students from University of Kochi summarized information about the floods that occurred in 2013 in Japan, gathered and investigated literature about the role of public health nurses in disaster. There were many difficulties in creating the poster because it was their first time, and as the students made progress with the poster, they came across problems one after another. The whole process of poster making was quite valuable for these students, especially about finding the focus and summarizing the main points. Furthermore, the students realized the importance of non-essential matters apart from the contents, such as design, placement, size and typeface. At the place of the actual presentation, the students delivered the talk in English, although not fluently, to the people who stopped by their booth, and this experience was very valuable for them.

The participation at EAFONS gave the students the firsthand knowledge about the various studies with which the graduate students in nursing in East Asia were involved. Students also appreciated meetings and exchanges with new contacts. These experiences motivated the students to seek out further participation at conferences in the future, and learn foreign languages, in order to be able to get involved with more people in different fields.



DNGL Miho Morosawa & Megumi Nichigawa, University of Kochi