Athabasca University course 609, Advanced Trends and Issues in Nursing is a master level course designed to assist the student in learning about issues and situations in nursing. One of the assignments within this course was an online formal debate. The topic I chose to debate was the pro side to the statement that health care is best managed through program management. In this paper I will self-evaluate my debate in relation to the debate content, the rebuttal to my opponent’s debate and my interaction with fellow students during the week of my debate.
	Prior to researching my debate topic, I contacted the professor to ensure I had an accurate understanding of the topic for debate. In reviewing the structure of the debate, I did present a debate that was within the requested slide limit number. I saw the value of a specific outline and page numbers from previous debates and I incorporated those into my debate. There were headings to assist the reader in understanding the information presented in the debate. I did not include any graphics in my presentation so that the slides would not be crowded, but several students said graphics would have made the presentation more engaging.
 I clearly articulated my position statement so the reader would understand the perspective I was presenting. Program Management was a management structure many of my classmates were not familiar with and it was important to explain the elements of a program management structure. I explained the purpose of program management; the structure is patient centered and involves interdisciplinary professionals that report to the same manager and that work together to meet patient care needs.
	In gathering information for my debate, I included references from thirteen articles. These references were all less than five years old and included recommendations from British Columbia’s (BC) nursing governing body, case studies and an interview with the previous Health Minister for BC. The articles were appropriately referenced in the body of the presentation. I made an error in the reference list as the journal volumes numbers should have been in italics.
	I outlined the benefits of program management in a way I believed would be most convincing for the reader which was firstly, the benefits for patients, then health care professionals (HCP) and finally the organization. Some of these concepts related to best practice, better understanding and collaboration between HCP’s and reduced medical errors. Each key point included a relevant reference which strengthened the comment. In my summary I highlighted some key points from the debate presentation to leave the reader with a positive view of program management. I may have presented a stronger case for the use of program management if I had presented more quantitative data relating to program management specifically rather than generally related to interdisciplinary practice. It was difficult to find specific study articles on the implementation of a program management structure. 
	In the rebuttal portion of the debate presentation I used elements of my opponent’s argument to determine my rebuttal argument. My opponent explained that the priorities of program management did not take into account the human side of healthcare. I argued using information from my debate and references that the priorities were and should be best practice which could be provided in a program management structure. Program management could prevent the “silos” that occur with discipline specific departments by having HCP’s from different disciplines as part of the team caring for patients. 
	My opponent stressed that there was no support for discipline specific practice in a program management model. I explained the role of the professional practice leader. This is a leader within each discipline who is solely responsible for the professional practice within that discipline. 
	In my opponent’s premise three statement, she made generalized comments without references and a series of deaths were attributed to a hospital’s program management structure. I highlighted these weaknesses in her argument to show that these statements should not have been attributed to a program management structure. 
	My opponent’s premise four statement highlighted that program management leaders neglected the fundamental nature of health care and there was a lack of measures to determine the effectiveness of a program management structure. In my rebuttal I questioned her comments by highlighting that the fundamental nature of health care should be best care for the patient which can be achieved through the implementation of program management. There are many elements of health care that can be measured to evaluate the effectiveness of a program management structure and I outlined these in my rebuttal.
	During the week of my debate presentation, I presented my debate and rebuttal on the days required. I responded to every fellow student’s comments with thorough explanations regarding program management as there were questions and uncertainties expressed by my fellow students regarding the concepts of program management. There were many questions and all were answered promptly. My comments were respectful and open minded to other students’ opinions. During the dialogue with fellow students I elaborated more on elements of a program management structure and gave some personal examples which I did not include in my debate. I had done this specifically so that my debate had strong and clear messages and I then responded to questions and opinions during the five days allotted for questions and comments. 
	By presenting this topic in a debate format, I better understood the necessary arguments that were crucial to my position and also understand the arguments my opponent could present in her debate. This allowed me to review and understand both viewpoints of a nursing issue and forced me to articulate my position clearly and succinctly. I believe I presented a strong debate and was able to rebut convincingly but respectfully to my opponent’s statements. This is a valuable skill to learn and this debate helped me to gain skills in presenting an argument for a particular viewpoint.