Magister Curationis - MCur / South Africa has a general shortage of most categories of health professionals, which include nurses, doctors, dentists and pharmacists. However, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that most of these professionals either work in the private health sector or have migrated to more affluent countries. Shortages of nurses in the rural setting continue to pose a problem for the Department of Health. The community service policy is stated in Section 40 of the Nursing Act, of 2005, and in the Regulations relating to Performance of Community Service published in the Government Notice No. 765 of 24 August 2005. In 2008, the first professional nurses started with their community service. Community service for health professionals is a policy proposal of the Department of Health that reacts to the lack of meeting the health requirements in poor communities, particularly in rural areas. It offers graduating health professionals with the prospect of gaining first-hand working experience in conditions of poverty and underdevelopment. South Africa is implementing community service for health professionals as a plan to manage the difficulties of human resources in the health sector. The transition period for community service practitioners in a rural setting is different, which implies that most support may need to be strengthened due to the remoteness of the rural setting. The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of community service practitioners during their community service at a rural health facility. From the findings, guidelines were described for the operational managers who are responsible for supporting the community service practitioners at a health facility in a rural area. A qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive design was applied, using individual unstructured interviews and field notes. Each interview took around 30-45 minutes to complete. The purposively selected sample consisted of community service practitioners (n = 10) who were practicing at rural health facilities. The process of inductive coding of Thomas (2003:5) was used to analyse the data. The results of this study indicate that a process is needed for community service practitioners fresh from university and an urban environment to adapt to a remote rural health facility. Some of the participants did receive an orientation programme at the beginning of their community service year. However, most of the community service practitioners that took part in the study learned from their experience during the year of their placements. For some, the learning opportunities were more available in the rural setting than when they had worked as students at the urban hospital during their training.

Magister Curationis - MCur / According to Benner (2001 ), an individual moves through five stages: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert. Competence is the measure or degree of a person's ability to cope with all aspects of the environment. It is expected that when an individual achieves competence, they possess the necessary knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and professionalism required to perform a certain function. The purpose of the study was to compare the perceptions of the Community Service Practitioners (Degree versus Diploma) regarding their clinical competence in providing nursing care and to establish and compare the perceptions of Professional Nurses regarding the clinical competence of the Community Service Practitioners they supervise (Degree versus Diploma) in providing nursing care. The null-hypothesis stated that there is no difference in the clinical competence of Community Service Practitioners who completed a Degree nursing programme as compared to those who completed a Diploma nursing programme leading to registration as a Professional Nurse (R425). The research methodology was quantitative, using a comparative, descriptive, cross-sectional design. The target population of the study included a sample of all Community Service Practitioners who worked in Regional Hospitals in the Western Cape and the Professional Nurses who supervised them. Convenience sampling was used to select the sample for this research and data were collected by means of a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire for the Professional Nurses supervising the Community Service Practitioners and a three-point Likert-scale questionnaire for the Community Service Practitioners. Data was organized and analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Version 21. Descriptive statistics were used and findings were illustrated by means of descriptive tables and figures. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to calculate the null-hypothesis, which was retained. The results of the study indicated that there is no difference in the clinical competence, which included knowledge, skills and attitude, of Community Service Practitioners who completed an undergraduate Degree compared to those who completed a Diploma in nursing.