Mrs. Rumu Dutta Chowdhury is the Vice Principal at Apollo College Of Nursing. She holds M.Sc. Nursing degree from Goutham College of Nursing, Bengaluru. She has over 16+ years of experience in the teaching field.

Apollo College Of Nursing

Being a part of Apollo, what are your roles and responsibilities towards the students?

It is a great opportunity to be a part of such a well reputed largest Indian multinational health care organization with a chain of hospitals and educational institutes in India and abroad. It always strives to offer quality services to its consumers within their own reach. Being a member of this largest health care group of India, I always feel energized to think that I am sharing my shoulder in achieving the great vision of educating the youth to prepare them as future skill-full, competent and efficient health care forces.

What valuable advice would you like to give to the students for them to have a prosperous career ahead?

Success never comes automatically; it is always a stepwise growth. To get success in life, a student's life is the best period to put all possible efforts into shaping their career. All that is required is to set a definite goal and have a good plan of study, consistency in study throughout the year and proper time management.

What do you see as the department’s greatest strengths and how it can be enhanced? 

The best part of our institute is the belief and time to time support provided to us from our administrative body. Secondly, our dedicated team members with highly qualified and experienced teaching faculty. We all work together in a coordinated manner under the able guideship of our principal madam. To enhance the performance of our department, we always encourage our team members for higher study, involvement in research activities and continuing nursing education. There is no limit to growth, so, we always strive for increasing our proficiencies to flourish in our field.

How does the curriculum of Apollo ensure the best practice of the industry?

We, at Apollo CON & SON follow the INC prescribed curriculum designed in such a way to meet the required experiences in a desirable manner. We prepare our academic plan well ahead including curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and implement accordingly to bring out the best in students. For clinical skill learning, our students are exposed to both govt. and private hospitals including NABH accredited hospital, Apollo Hospitals Guwahati as their parent hospital to provide the opportunities to explore in every sphere and prepare them to fit easily in any type of health care setting.

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When you came to the institute, what was your vision and how are you trying to achieve the same?

As I have been working in this institute since 2011, since then, I was and still continue to work for the growth of this institute with a dream to make this institute one of the most desirable places for the candidates to study nursing.

What are the challenges you faced/ are facing to uplift the quality of education of your institution?

It is known to all that challenges open the gate of opportunities. Presently, the entrance examination for entry to nursing courses has brought a change in the academic system which we all the nursing institutes are trying to adjust with. The candidates are still not well aware about the CEE conducted by SSUHS, hence, students in-flow is very less. Hence, through this media, I would like to spread the message that the aspiring candidates for nursing courses both GNM and B.Sc. Nursing should prepare themselves for the CEE and to keep an eye on the university website i.e. ssuhs.in regarding the information of CEE, so that they will not miss the chance to avail a prospective professional life with lots of future career opportunities.

Do you have any extracurricular activities/ programs to enhance the skills of the students or expose them to real world challenges?

Yes, of course! Nursing is a balanced course in total. We, all nurses, believe in all-round development of a student. And I already mentioned that our academic plan includes all possible dimensions for the overall growth of each and every student including co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. We always encourage the students for their active participation. The students are also exposed to outside intercollegiate, state level and even national level competitions. This year too, our student is going to participate in the national level TNAI/SNA competition which will be held from 28th November, 2023.

How do you help your student to cope up with the competition being so high in the outside world? 

We consider our students as a part of the bigger Apollo family. We always give assurance to all the students to make them feel free in this set up and offer time to time counseling to the needy students.

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What are your views upon the placements and higher education about the students from your institution or how does the institution prepare students for higher education?

Today’s generation is a generation of high aspiration. Immediately, after completion of their course, almost all the students are absorbed. B.Sc. N students prefer to join CHO post, GNM majority join private hospitals and as soon as they get their result, maximum students get absorbed in Govt. job. Some directly go for higher education. Assistance for placement in Apollo Hospitals are also provided. This year from both GNM and B.Sc. students are selected for placement in Apollo Hospitals Guwahati and Apollo Excel care Hospital. Campus interviews from other organizations and even opportunities for working Abroad are offered to the students from different countries and our own Apollo group also offers placement in Apollo Medical College Hospital in the UK. 

How do you strategize the curriculum and how often it gets updated to make it befitting for the students?

Nursing curriculum in itself is a well-balanced curriculum and from time to time according to the needs of society with emergence of new diseases, technological advancement etc. review and necessary changes in the curriculum is done by the Indian Nursing Council. Last year only we started the new revised syllabus of B.Sc. Nursing course with semester basis with lots of addition in the subjects, mode of practical training and evaluation techniques. Accordingly, we are adopting new skills of teaching, developing new styles for teaching and evaluating the students. It all depends on the change happening around and we are continuing our process to upgrade ourselves so that we can prepare our students at par with the recent trends.

What are the best practices offered by the department to the students which help them gain necessary skills?

Besides the INC curriculum, our institute provides some extra preparedness for the students to excel in the real world’s competition. We have arranged OET classes preparing the students for the beginning of the course so that their English should be a barrier for their success. Other language classes initiated from the Govt. of India for Japanese language, we expose our final year students for better future scope. We also have two other skill enhancing courses, one is called FINE skill and another one is instrument calibration program which are very very necessary during clinical handling of patients. We are hopeful that in near future, we will be able to start exposing our students batch wise to the very large skill lab at Chennai Apollo College of Nursing which is already in our plan.