Examining in the Kingdom of Bahrain

MANAMA, Kingdom of Bahrain—The last time I visited Bahrain, I arrived on a Sunday night and took a taxi to the nearest Catholic church to attend Mass. This proved to be a mistake. The “five minutes” from the hotel, as estimated by the hotel receptionist, turned into a considerable taxi ride, miles from the Diplomatic Area (DA) where I was staying. The class of housing dropped and the width of the streets steadily reduced and, eventually, I found myself downtown, where the walls had slogans in English and Arabic. This was immediately following the Arab Spring risings, which had reached the Kingdom and the television screens. My hosts, my employers and my wife would have had a collective fainting fit if they had seen me.

I attended Mass, the only westerner, and then tried to hail a taxi. Plenty went past, but none would stop. As a mild sense of anxiety set in about my predicament—lost, dark, miles from my hotel, and in an area of obvious unrest—I was rescued by a diminutive Indian gentleman, clearly amused at my attempts to hail a taxi in that area. He promised, and duly fulfilled his promise, to lead me to safety. My escape took me through a series of back alleys and past some dubious looking local characters to an area where taxis were available. I hailed one, and my saviour disappeared down one of the alleys from which we had emerged, hardly stopping for thanks.

This is my second visit to the Middle East this year (blog passim) and my second time here as an external examiner at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI-MUB). I have not ventured beyond the DA and, apart from a five-kilometre run that I worked out for the early mornings (30 degrees Celsius; 86 degrees Fahrenheit) before the temperature rises to a searing 40 degrees C (104 F), I have only been to the college and restaurants. The RCSI-MUB was established in 2005 and represents one aspect of the work of the RCSI in Dublin to expand and find business in this region. As such, the RCSI is both innovative and entrepreneurial and has established a very good name for itself in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The RCSI-MUB runs a School of Nursing and Midwifery here that provides undergraduate programmes, including a bridging programme for local diploma-educated nurses and a master’s programme. I examine the bridging programme and the master’s programme and, as my reports to the college have indicated, have been impressed with the standard of work and, in particular, by some of the master’s students, who have to present their work to members of the school in my presence. I predict that the School of Nursing and Midwifery here will become a powerhouse for academic and clinical nursing in the region.

In my previous entry from Finland, I promised to let you know if any of my colleagues have been invited to become fellows of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN). I am happy to report that Sally Chan, the subject of a previous post, has been selected; also Mark Hayter, my Hull colleague and fellow editor of Journal of Advanced Nursing. The contingent of FAAN international fellows is growing, and I am very happy to be part of that group. I always look forward to my visits to Washington, D.C., but I predict that this year is going to be more fun than usual. If you see me there in October, please say hello.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

From the land of the midnight sun

TURKU, Finland—The flight from Helsinki to Turku barely gets in the air before it lands in Turku. This very short flight takes you from the capital of Finland to the mouth of the river Aura on the nation’s southwest coast. Turku boasts a fine university, the University of Turku, which houses the Department of Nursing Science and an array of nursing scholars of truly stellar reputation in Europe and beyond, including Helena Leino-Kilpi, PhD, RN, Sanna Salanterä, PhD, RN, and Riitta Suhonen, PhD, RN. It is remarkable to find such talent in so small a department.

I, together with Ian Norman, PhD, RN, FEANS, my rival in editing and friend in research and scholarship, have been teaching writing-for-publication classes to Finnish postgraduate students—not all from Turku and not all in nursing. Norman is professor and associate dean of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at King’s College, London, and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nursing Studies. Over the years, I have researched, written, and published with him and have learned a great deal about acquiring research funding and managing research projects. The classes were challenging. These are some of the best research students in Scandinavia, and they questioned nearly every point we made. As usual, I came away realising that my ideas and my PowerPoints need further revision.

Compared with England and Ireland—I visited Ireland on the way here—the weather in Turku is superb. The British Isles are mostly shrouded in mist and still experiencing very cold weather despite the time of year, but Turku was 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) with bright sunshine that only receded for about three hours after midnight. This is, almost, the “land of the midnight sun.” I managed two runs along the Aura River, still navigable well into the town of Turku, where some splendid tall ships and lots of boats moored along the banks are used as bars and restaurants. Wednesday night in Turku is Harley-Davidson night, and I think that nearly 1,000 of them were parked along the river last night, with their riders—average age easily more than 60—admiring each other’s bikes.

Work continues wherever I am. When classes ended this morning, I spent the rest of the day in my hotel room in close contact via Skype and email with Parveen Ali, PhD, PG Cert (HE) RN, RM, my good colleague at Hull. She and I, together with our expert in orthopaedic nursing, Julie Santy-Tomlinson, MSc, RGN, RNT, were awarded a small amount of money by the Royal College of Nursing (of the United Kingdom) Society of Orthopaedic and Trauma Nursing to conduct a systematic review of acute lower limb compartment syndrome (ALCS). The work will inform a consensus conference of the society convened to produce nursing guidelines for detection and management of ALCS. The report is due to be submitted by 5 p.m. today. I think we made it.

The rest of the year is shaping up. I will be in Bahrain before the end of the month. Then, after a relatively quiet two months, August will find me in Taiwan and Australia. In October, I head, in quick succession, to Hong Kong and mainland China, returning to the United Kingdom between those trips to teach at my university. The China visit leads directly—after the longest Cathay Pacific flight of 18 hours—to Washington, D.C. for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Nursing. Next month, we should hear who the new fellows are, and I am hoping the list contains at least two international fellows who are well known to me. You will be the first to know.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

A quick visit to Rome

ROME—Frequent visits to Italy make me appreciate my proximity to continental Europe. Running along the banks of the Tiber at 6:30 a.m., with Rome waking up around me and the sun already burning the top of my head—much less protected by hair than it used to be—is one of the most memorable things I have done this year. Rome is beautiful. It certainly represents no hardship to visit these visually stunning and deeply historic places, so easily accessible from the United Kingdom.

I am here at the invitation of Gennaro Rocco, president of Ipasvi (Nursing Board of Rome) to deliver a paper, “The ethics of publication,” at the Ministero della Salute (Italian Ministry of Health). Rocco is the epitome of Italian style, manners, and leadership. He has been elected to his presidency for more than a decade, and his vision and drive have helped Ipasvi establish a Centre of Excellence for Nursing Culture and Research.

My role at the Centre of Excellence, along with other international advisers, has been to provide advice on academic publishing with a view to helping Ipasvi develop the first Italian academic nursing journal. Once again, I have been reflecting on why I am here and why I should be so lucky to visit the capitals of the world, to work with the cream of international nursing, and to do so at no expense to me or my university. Another chance encounter, the subject of a recent post, played a part.

In 2004, I co-organised a symposium on quantitative methods in nursing research at the annual International Research Conference of the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom. The symposium was well attended and very well evaluated. However, the most important outcome for me was my first meeting with Alvisa Palese. Flamboyant, immaculate, and affectionate—in a word, Italian—she enthused about the session, and I have been in contact with her ever since. She is now my PhD student at Hull. This contact led to a regular series of workshops delivered to Italian postgraduate nursing students in Trieste and Genoa. These students are pioneers, especially the doctoral students, as doctoral-level education for nurses is a fairly recent development in Italy.

This has been a very short visit, but one worth reporting on, as I think that the Centre of Excellence for Nursing Culture and Research is going to become a major force for nursing change in Italy. There is such a centre in Spain, which is similar to, though slightly ahead of, Italy in development of nursing education, but I know of no other centres like this anywhere in the world.

What struck my U.K. colleagues and me most was the integration and common purpose amongst nurses engaged in professional regulation, clinical practice and education. I have also witnessed this in the United States and Australia. Sadly, in the United Kingdom, there is a void between clinical practice and academia, and our regulatory body is not especially proactive in developing the profession. We were there to advise, based on our experience, but we would give a great deal to have a Gennaro Rocco in our midst, and I envisage a day, not too far away, when senior Italian nurses are advising us in the United Kingdom. Moreover, I welcome that day.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.