At last, back in Istanbul

ISTANBUL, Turkey—It has been four years since I last visited Istanbul, and this is my third visit. Istanbul is one of my favourite places and lives up to every expectation of noise, chaos, culture, and scenery. Islamic fundamentalism is rising here. Since my last visit, the calls to prayer seem louder, and the number of women wearing headscarves and veils has noticeably increased. The recent military coup failed, largely because the army seemed to misjudge what the people wanted.

The international terminal at Istanbul Atatürk Airport recently underwent some structural alterations thanks to a car bomb, yet Istanbul remains a paragon of religious tolerance with mosques, churches, and synagogues in close proximity to one another. The scenery across the Bosphorus, especially where Europe and Asia almost touch, is wonderful. Of course, this is where modern nursing began. Several years ago, I had the privilege of a hastily arranged private visit to The Florence Nightingale Museum, which includes her rooms at the Turkish First Army Base. It normally takes a year to make an appointment, but I had “contacts.”

Conference

Yours Truly with Neriman Akansel,
associate professor, Ululağ University,
Bursa, Turkey.

I am here to address the 2nd National Management in Nursing conference at Istanbul University. I eschewed a personal translator for the three-day conference—personal translation is very hard work for both the translator and the listener—and spent some time catching up with old friends also attending the conference. My keynote address, “Through the eyes of the editor,” was on the theme of nursing research (click here for podcast).

Yours Truly with, l-r, Xin Wang, Guangzhou Medical University,
Guangzhou, Guangdong Province; Li Qi, Qiqihar Medical
University, Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province; Dean Julie Jomeen;
and Yu Chen, Southern Medical University, also in Guangzhou.

That time of year

In blogs passim, I have alluded to the fact that, as we approach the holidays this time of year, I always hope to wind down without being “wound up.” Once again, this did not happen. I was prepared to let pass UK government policies in relation to associate nurses. Others had said plenty But the recent declaration about apprentice-style training for nurses hit the right button, and a lucky meeting with one of the editors of The Conversation persuaded me to contact the health editor and suggest a piece. Within two days, it was published. I am heavily critical of the proposals of our Secretary of State for Health, the RHon. Jeremy Hunt, MP. Fortunately, this was not out when my colleague Mark Hayter, PhD, RN, FAAN, met Hunt recently in China.

Social life in Istanbul

The lucky, but long-suffering Mrs. Watson accompanied me on this visit. I managed to bribe her to join me by employing a guide to show her the wonderful sights of Istanbul, and she has now seen more of the city than I have. It’s our wedding anniversary while we are here, and I have booked my favourite restaurant in Istanbul: The Armada Terrace Restaurant. The food and the wine are top class and the view over the Bosphorus one of the best in the city. The view takes in two magnificent mosques which, in the evening, are illuminated beautifully. Only after we arrived in Istanbul did I learn from our invitation that the conference dinner is also in the Armada. I hope Mrs. Watson likes it as much as I do.

Back in Hull, it has been time to say goodbye to one Chinese visitor and welcome some new ones, as captured in the picture that accompanies this entry. This is the last entry of 2016, and I do not travel again until February. I hope you have enjoyed reading “Hanging Smart” as much as I have enjoyed writing it this past year. I would like to thank Jim Mattson, editor of Reflections on Nursing Leadership, and the team at STTI who support and administer the blog. Happy holidays to all our readers. See you in 2017!

P.S. After I submitted the above entry, my wife and I woke up on Sunday morning to the news of the Saturday, 10 December bombing in Istanbul. We were well away from the event, but I want to express my sympathy to the people of Istanbul who lost family and friends and to anyone injured in this atrocity. We are safe, and Istanbul carries on as normal, which is the best reaction to terrorism.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

To Spain and back, and back to Spain

MADRID, Spain—I reported on my recent visit to Egypt in the last entry, but I didn’t mention my “souvenir,” which became apparent only after my return. Microbiologically, it remains unidentified, but I think I can narrow it down to either Salmonella or E. Coli. Either way, the result was indescribable illness during which time I had to give a major public lecture and travel to Spain. I was debilitated for only 24 hours, but these bugs completely alter your gut fauna such that nothing works properly for days—10 days, to be precise.

Pamplona

Yours Truly with nursing students at Universidad
de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain in 1991.

I gave the Elsie Stephenson Memorial lecture at The University of Edinburgh (click here for podcast) with great trepidation but without incident. I then travelled to Pamplona in the north of Spain to spend a week as a visiting professor at Universidad de Navarra in the Faculty of Nursing, where I gave lectures and met with staff to discuss research projects and publications. I have a great many friends in Pamplona, as described in a previous entry, and the local food is very good. I have been coming here for 25 years, and someone found this picture from my first visit. I had more on top and less round the middle in those days.

I had to decline most invitations to eat until my intestines were finally brought under control by a combination of semistarvation and isotonic drinks. The visit to Spain reminded me how great international travel is—when it works! On the way to Madrid, I had a four-hour delay at London Heathrow and an unexpected and unwanted night in an airport hotel. On return, the flights worked, but my train to Hull from London was delayed by two hours.

Madrid

Yours Truly, 2016.

After two weeks at home, I returned to Spain but, this time, to the outskirts of Madrid to spend two days at the Universidad Europea de Madrid, one of three in Spain. I visited another campus of the same university in 2015, reported in a previous entry. These universities, part of the Laureate International Universities, are run as private universities and commercial companies, a very different model from the one I am used to in the UK where there is only one private university—the University of Buckingham.

My visit was organised around one lecture to staff and students titled “From research results to publication.” It was well attended, but what pleased me most was the intense and thoughtful questions from staff members and students about trends in scientific publication. I also had a long meeting with staff members to discuss publication strategies and to go into more depth on some aspects of the lecture.

The visit was hosted by Ana María Giménez Maroto, PhD, RN, head of nursing, whom I was delighted to meet. I was also very pleased to meet an old friend, Juanjo José Beunza Nuin, DE, MMed, Msc, a former cardiovascular physician who worked in Pamplona but who now divides his time between the Universidad Europea where he runs interprofessional learning and his consultancy company. Many years ago, we climbed together on some of Navarra, Spain’s enormous limestone crags.

This visit introduced me to a wonderful designer hotel, the Petit Palace Art Gallery near Plaza de Colón in the heart of Madrid. I was very amused to find one of those elevators you see in movies. You know, the ones that run up the centre of a spiral staircase with two sets of doors that you operate yourself and—in movies at least—always seem to be associated with suspense and drama. I have no idea what they are called, but I made a video that I uploaded to YouTube. Some people might say I need to get out more often.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be published.

First trip to Egypt and first to Africa

DAMANHOUR, Egypt—I imagine emergency departments in Egypt have a thriving “trade.” I had been warned about the driving here but was not prepared for the terrifying three-hour drive from Cairo International Airport to Alexandria. I may have reported what I considered the most terrifying drive ever in blog entries passim, but this one topped the league.

Collected from the airport at 1:30 a.m. after the flight from London, I was taken by people who spoke very little English to an unmarked and battle-scarred car with no rear seatbelt and a pervading reek of exhaust fumes. I had visions of my death certificate with entries of “carbon monoxide poisoning” or “multiple trauma.” I was unsure if I was being kidnapped, taken to Alexandria, or both. Turned out my destination was my hotel in Alexandria, but that became clear only after being driven by someone in contention for the land speed record who was unsure of the route.

To compensate for his lack of direction, he chased and then drew up alongside other drivers, sounded his horn, and then leant over the sleeping passenger in the front seat to ask directions. Meantime, both cars were swerving and nearly colliding. Twice this happened with an intersection looming. I registered 140 kilometres per hour (86 miles per hour) at one point. We arrived at 4:30 a.m., but it was nearly 6 a.m. before my vital signs were within the normal range. I vowed the return journey would not be made in the same manner and emailed my hosts to that effect the next morning.

Alexandria, the second largest city in Egypt and its largest
seaport, was founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great.

– Photo by Zbruch/iStock

Damanhour University

I am here at the invitation of the Faculty of Nursing at Damanhour University, which is approximately 40 miles inland from Alexandria. Alexandria, which is on the Mediterranean Sea, reminded me of Jeddah, except it is more crowded and less of a paradise. You get the impression it will take only a small percentage increase in the number of cars on the roads, and the whole city will grind to a standstill amidst a cacophony of car horns.

Today, my hosts drove me around and then down to Damanhour. Egypt is almost everything I expected. There is an acute sense of entropy here with little aesthetic appeal to buildings, with many of them—especially in the rural areas—leading you to wonder if they are under construction or demolition.

International conference

The Faculty of Nursing at Damanhour University is holding its 1st International Scientific Nursing Conference, and I am the international person. I gave a keynote today titled “The Path to Publication,” and tomorrow I give a workshop on writing for publication. Academic nursing here is organised very differently from in the UK. They have fewer students than we do at Hull, but there are far more staff members, and they are organised into departments around each of the subspecialties, such as paediatrics, and around more general areas, such as nursing management.

The author with Assistant Professor Enas Ibrahim (dean),
Assistant Professor Yaldez Zeineldin, and Professor
Neamat El-Sayed, with Mediterranean Sea behind.

The senior students—the men with suits and purple ties and the women with purple headscarves—acted as doorkeepers and helpers, something I could not imagine our own students being expected to do. This demonstrates a striking cultural difference among students I have seen in the Middle East, the Far East, and Southeast Asia. The students were fun, and my jaws ached from posing for hundreds of camera shots and selfies. It must also have been a slow news day in Damanhour, as three television channels interviewed me.

My first visit to Egypt—my first also to Africa—ends in the small hours of the morning after tomorrow. I have had to compromise on the return journey and accept being driven in a hired car with a qualified driver, as opposed to the university driver who initially collected me and whose driving is legendary. I cannot imagine a slower driver, but seatbelts are promised. I have not seen the pyramids or the Sphinx, but I have made some new friends who are planning to have me back again.

I return to the UK Tuesday night, 1 November, and then go to Edinburgh University to deliver, as part of its 60th anniversary of nursing studies, the Elsie Stephenson Memorial Lecture on the theme “Towards a public understanding of nursing.”

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

An honor to run with Her Honor

RONALD REAGAN AIRPORT, Arlington, Virginia, USA—Between my previous entry—from Italy—and this one, which follows my visit to Washington, D.C., I had two days in the UK, one day at home and then a day in London at “the mother of parliaments” to attend the launch of Triple Impact, the outcome of the report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health (APPG) on nursing’s contribution to global health. I was invited as one of those who provided evidence to the APPG.

The report was presented by Lord Crisp and others also spoke, including Janet Davies, RN, FRCN, chief executive officer of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Frances Hughes, DNurs, RN, ONZM, chief executive officer of the International Council of Nursing (ICN). I thought it ironic that they were united here given RCN’s decision to quit the ICN several years ago, a move I consider very nearsighted. Following the meeting and before taking the train home, I had a very special treat when I was taken for drinks to The Athenaeum, the most prestigious club in London, by member Anne Marie Rafferty, CBE, PhD, FAAN.

Washington, D.C.

Next day, I returned to London with my wife to stay overnight before flying to New York and then on to Reagan National Airport in Arlington, the nearest airport to Washington, D.C. I avoid Washington Dulles International Airport, which, despite the Washington tag, could be situated (in my humble opinion) a lot closer to Washington.

Loredana Sasso proudly points to her picture on the Wall of Fame
at the American Academy of Nursing conference and induction.

We were in D.C. for the American Academy of Nursing’s (AAN) 2016 Transforming Health, Driving Policy Conference and induction ceremony for new fellows of the academy. Together with Mark Hayter, PhD, RN, FAAN, I sponsored the first Italian to be inducted, Loredana Sasso, MSN, RN, FAAN. We had a thoroughly good time, and I showed my wife the sights of Washington, from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. We took in a few museums, the White House, and the Vietnam War memorial. We also visited Arlington Cemetery, my first time there.

At the AAN conference, I had the most wonderful time running into old friends and making new ones. Old friends included: Frank Shaffer, EdD, RN, FAAN, chief executive officer of CFGNS; Afaf Meleis, PhD, RN, FAAN, former dean of nursing at the University of Pennsylvania; Rita Pickler, PhD, RN, FAAN, nurse scientist at The Ohio State University and one of my fellow Journal of Advanced Nursing editors; Jean Watson, PhD, RN, FAAN, nurse theorist and Distinguished Professor of Nursing from the University of Colorado; Cathy Catrambone, PhD, RN, FAAN, president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International; and Susan Gennaro, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean and professor at Boston College’s William F. Connell School of Nursing and editor of Journal of Nursing Scholarship.

Three old friends were inducted into the American Academy of Nursing: Dawn Downing, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor of nursing, Columbia University, New York, and long-standing colleague formerly in the UK; Ying Wu, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean of nursing at Peking Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; and Esra Al Khasawneh, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean of nursing at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. One new friend I was delighted to meet was Sean Clarke, PhD, RN, FAAN, associate dean of nursing at Boston College.

The induction ceremony was a triumph, and Mrs. Watson and I sat with a delegation of 14 Italians who were there to support Professor Sasso. The Italians were great company. One of the “upsides” for me was that my wife had a large selection of handsome tuxedoed Italian men with whom to dance while I got on with the serious business of running quality-assurance tests on a bottle of Yeungling beer, made by the oldest brewery in the United States.

At American Academy of Nursing conference,
l-r: Loredana Sasso, Annamarie Bagnasco, Yours Truly,
Giuseppe Aleo, Gianluca Catania, and Milko Zanini.

Running in D.C., but not for office

Naturally, Mrs. Watson and I took our running shoes with us, and we had a very pleasant run around Crystal City. The running triumph was finding a local ParkRun and working out how to get there. ParkRun started in the United Kingdom but has spread across the world. There are three in D.C., and the ambition is to start one in each ward of the city. We chose an amazing event to attend as Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, D.C., joined us on the morning of the run as a way to promote her campaign of fitness in the city. I met Her Honor, shook her hand, and spoke to her. She ran the 5k course with us. I was very pleased to do a time of 22:34, coming in 14th out of 98 runners and first in my age category. Mrs. Watson came in first in her age category, too. I don’t think I can top that for this entry, so I’ll end there.

Next week, from Egypt.

John Adams

As I was finalising this entry and on the verge of submitting it for posting, I received news that a great friend and scholar, John Adams, PhD, RN, formerly of Homerton College, University of Cambridge, had just died. John was a mental health nurse and historian and one of the most entertaining public speakers I have had the privilege to know. In retirement, he had taken to writing obituaries of our departed colleagues, and I joked with him recently—while he was in poor health—that he would live long enough to write mine. Dear John, requiescat in pace.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

This could be Rotterdam ...

GENOA, Italy—The well-known British pop band The Beautiful South played a song titled “Rotterdam,” the chorus of which observes, “This could be Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome …” It felt like that for me these past two weeks because, following Slovenia, I have been in Rotterdam and Genoa. Telling you this also allows me to note that, while many readers of “Hanging smart” will know the song, they may not know that The Beautiful South comes from my home town of Hull and evolved from an equally famous band The Housemartins. So, after that trip down musical memory lane …

Rotterdam

I was in Rotterdam last week for the 5th European Nursing Congress. The theme of these meetings is always care of older people, and the congress, held over four days, provided a series of keynotes and parallel sessions on research and practice related to gerontological nursing. The opening ceremony was attended by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. One of the keynote speakers was my good friend and colleague Li-Chan Lin, PhD, RN, of National Yang Ming University in Taipei, Taiwan. Lin has pioneered the use of the Montessori method and spaced retrieval to help older people with dementia eat. I had the privilege of co-authoring an article reporting the first randomised controlled trial using these methods. Lin also spent six months with me at the University of Sheffield as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor, and her invitation for me to visit her in Taiwan in 2004 led to an unbroken stream of annual visits to Taiwan.

My own contribution to the Rotterdam proceedings was a workshop titled “Four easy steps to publishing your manuscript,” which was well attended. The Journal of Advanced Nursing provided a special issue for the conference abstracts, and it was good to see each of the 1,000 delegates holding a copy of the journal. Six years ago, at the previous congress, the abstracts were published in a special issue of Journal of Clinical Nursing, which I then edited.

Genoa

After one day at home to remind the family of my existence, I went to Genoa, Italy for a week of activities as a visiting professor (docenti) at the University of Genoa. In Rotterdam, I had met Julita Sansoni, PhD, RN, associate professor at Sapienza University of Rome, and illustrating the cliché “It’s a small world,” she was here in Genoa this week, and we had dinner together.

Loredana Sasso

Excitement is growing in the nursing department here because, next week, Loredana Sasso, MSN, MedSc, RN, will be inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in Washington, D.C. Sasso is the first Italian nurse to be inducted, and I am very proud to be her co-sponsor, along with my colleague Mark Hayter, PhD, RN, FAAN, (also a docenti in Genoa). I will be there with Mrs. Watson and a delegation of 14 Italians cheering on this great pioneer of Italian nursing. Pictures and news from the academy meeting will feature in my next entry.

Cheers! In Genoa with (l-r) Milko Zanini, Giuseppe Aleo,
and Mark Hayter.

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“Hanging Smart: The Movie” and Slovenia

VIENNA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Austria—Many wonder about the title of this blog. Maybe you're one of them. It’s a climbing term, and I have made a short video titled “Hanging Smart: The Movie” to help explain. Warning: This is not for the fainthearted. Yours Truly in mortal danger may be more than you can cope with.

Slovenia

I have just been in Slovenia—essentially—for the first time. I say that because Mrs. Watson and I crossed the Italian-Slovenian border at Trieste several years ago to have dinner with an Italian colleague, but we were there and back in the same evening. This time, I spent a week at the University of Maribor in the Faculty of Health Sciences providing workshops on writing for publication. I am prone to falling in love with the last new place I visit, and it has happened again. Slovenia is a wonderful place.

This was the first country to break away about 25 years ago from the former Yugoslavia, and it did so peacefully with only a few border skirmishes and a handful of unfortunate deaths. They continue to have border disputes with neighbouring Croatia, but, to date, these have been conducted without gunfire. 

View over the river in the small historical town of Ptuj,
pronouned pa-tuey.

Some here still hanker back to the days of communism when everyone had a job, but they need to look around them. With the exception of North Korea, the military-industrial complex that was the basis of the Soviet bloc economy has proved untenable. Even where the ideology remains—in Russia, China, and Cuba, for example—the economic benefits of personal choice, financial reward, and movement across borders have prevailed.

The scenery is superb, the food a delight, and the hospitality overwhelming. Nursing at Maribor, under the leadership of Dean Majda Panjkihar, PhD, RN, is impressive. They have just established the first PhD programme for nurses in Slovenia and have an intake of five students. While I was there, Brendan McCormack, PhD, RN, FRCN, head of nursing at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, gave his inaugural professorial lecture on his field of person-centred care. It was an inspiring event. Over the course of the week, he and I sampled a wide range of local alcoholic beverages—colleagues, someone has to make these sacrifices—and found we had almost identical likes and dislikes about modern nursing in the UK.

McCormack is appointed professor
at the University of Maribor

McCormack and I have often found ourselves on opposite sides of many arguments, and I am sure that will not change. We come from very different academic backgrounds and philosophical positions. Where he may refer to releasing creative energy, I am more likely to regard that as thermodynamically impossible. It’s a case of flamboyant creativity versus plodding objectivity, but we have decided to inflict our collective view on the public. Watch this space for a link to our collective and—potentially—career-ending editorial.

Homeward bound

I write this at Vienna International Airport, for me a first, as I have never been in Austria before. The drive from Maribor is two and a half hours at speeds unimaginable—legally—in the United Kingdom or United States. I am home for the weekend and then go to Rotterdam to attend a conference, about which I will report in these pages.

I have managed to buy two tickets for a home game over the weekend between Hull City Football Club and Chelsea Football Club—football as in soccer. My home team is again part of the English Premier League, so far with mixed results, some of which I have witnessed. We have never beaten Chelsea, and I don’t expect we will this time, but, as the saying goes, it gets me out of the house.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

How many shopping days?

HULL, United Kingdom—This entry finds me after significant breaks from blogging—at least in “Hanging Smart”—and travel. I take the title of this post from the UK obsession this time of year, when summer is ending and people are looking forward to their next major holiday, Christmas—especially the constant reminders from the retail sector of how many shopping days and weekends we have left in our spending spree.

Over summer, the long-suffering Mrs. Watson insisted we take a break, and that led to a few days in London doing things we never did when we lived there many years ago. On the scholarly side of things, two major research-grant proposals have been submitted to potential funders, and several manuscripts have been revised and resubmitted to journals.

We are now at that time in the academic year when our modules have to be revised for the coming semester and dissertations from final-year students marked. People often ask if, with all my travelling, I actually teach and mark students’ work. The answer is yes. I must admit that my incredible colleagues at Hull carry a heavier load than I of these things and, without their support, I could not maintain my international work. However, I like to think I am still engaged with students at all programme levels.

Since my last entry, I have been to Oxford, UK, to attend the management team meeting of Journal of Advanced Nursing. This is the best two days of the year in terms of discussion and decision-making, and I keep reminding myself how lucky I am to work with a superb publishing team at Wiley—I have known and worked with at least one of its members for 25 years—and a highly professional team of editors.

Immediately prior to that meeting, I attended the 2016 meeting of INANE (International Academy of Nursing Editors) at the headquarters of the Royal College of Nursing in London. There I had the privilege of listening to Ben Goldacre, MB, BS, MA, author of Bad Science (the book and the blog), Bad Pharma, and now I Think You’ll Find it’s a Bit More Complicated Than That. He signed a copy for me. Goldacre initiated the AllTrials campaign, which aims for total transparency in reporting clinical trials. I reflect on this meeting and what he had to say in a post titled “Being Ben Goldacre” in my blog “Publishing Standards.”

Eric Chan addresses colleagues at
Napier University on global health.

The break from travel ended last week. I have just returned from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland, which has launched a new School of Health and Social Care. The launch event took place over two days and was attended by colleagues from Hong Kong and Singapore. Of those colleagues, I was especially pleased to see my good friend Eric Chan, MSc, RN, dean of Caritas Institute of Higher Education in Hong Kong, former deputy chief nurse of the Hong Kong Health Authority, and one of the founding members of GAPFON (Global Advisory Panel on the Future of Nursing & Midwifery).

I suppose I ought to be counting the time to Christmas by air miles and how many weekends I will actually spend at home. This week, I’m spending three days at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, at the 2016 NET (Nurse Education Tomorrow) conference where I am providing early-morning consultation sessions on writing for publication.

Looking further ahead, between now and the end of the year, in addition to another visit to Edinburgh and at least three to London, I will make two visits to Spain (Madrid and Pamplona); one to Maribor, Slovenia; one to Rotterdam, Netherlands; and one to Istanbul, Turkey. I will also visit Washington, D.C. for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Nursing. A visit to Egypt is also being arranged but is not yet finalised. I am sure these visits will have their high points and their low points. Either way, you’ll read all about them here.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

Evidence in support of baccalaureate nurses stacks up

HONG KONG, SAR, China—Less than a week after leaving Hong Kong, I was back, this time for a few days with my son—his first visit to Hong Kong—on the way to Australia. It is easy to make an impression on people with Hong Kong: the world’s highest bar (the 118th floor Ozone), possibly the best high-level restaurant in the world (the incomparable Felix restaurant), and searing hot temperatures.

The Conversation

One of the best things to come out of Australia in recent years is The Conversation. This is an online newspaper for which only academics may write. Supported financially by CommBank and most universities, The Conversation now exists in three other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. The articles take the form of short, blog-like entries, and individuals have to “pitch” pieces to the editors. After several failed efforts at pitching, I finally had one accepted on the basis of a study that I co-authored, which was published in Journal of Advanced Nursing.

Even for an experienced writer and editor, it was an instructive process. Once the pitch was accepted, I was given very specific instructions on how to write the piece and was given 48 hours to produce 700 words. The house style aims for the reading level of a 16-year-old with short sentences, no polysyllabic words (i.e. no “big” ones—sorry, couldn’t resist that), main points presented in the opening, and not ending with “More research is needed.” I am tempted to introduce the same style for Journal of Advanced Nursing. It works!

My article was titled “You’re more likely to survive hospital if your nurse has a degree.” The study was led by Richard Gray, PhD, RN, of the Hamad Medical Corporation in Doha, Qatar. Evidence that baccalaureate nurses save more lives is already available from the work of Linda Aiken, PhD, RN, FRCN, FAAN, of the University of Pennsylvania and the RN4CAST study, and our study takes this work forward.

In Qatar, each incident of nursing care is recorded electronically, which means the nurse’s name is recorded. From that, we were able to see whether the nurse is a baccalaureate graduate. We were then able to calculate the extent to which patients received care from baccalaureate—as opposed to diplomate—nurses. The results show that when baccalaureate nurses deliver care, patients are less likely to die. As I write, less than two weeks after publication, my article has had more than 9,000 reads, and its Altmetrics score is currently 70.

Meantime, in Australia

I am making my annual visit to Western Sydney University (until recently called University of Western Sydney) as adjunct professor and also visiting my relatives in Brisbane. My son Joseph is here with me, and my daughter Lucy, an RN in the British Army, has also been here for a few weeks. We had a good family reunion.

Looking ahead to travel plans for the rest of the year, I see that Turkey is on my calendar for December. I have been invited to speak at a conference, and my wife will accompany me for our wedding anniversary. For that reason and because I have friends and colleagues in Turkey, I hope events following the failed military coup have settled down. I have been in contact with a very good nursing colleague who says they are all “stressed and depressed” at the present situation. Once again, I find that problems in another part of the world help put my own problems into perspective.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

Hong Kong: The same but different

HONG KONG, SAR, China—Five days ago, less than a week after transferring through Hong Kong International Airport, I was back, jet-lagged. Although I have been through the airport 10 times since my last visit, this was the first time I had stepped out of the airport in 12 months.

I am back in Hong Kong to sit on the University Grants Council (UGC) Humanities and Social Sciences Sub-Panel. Under excellent chairing by Cindy Fan, PhD, vice provost for international studies and global engagement, UCLA Department of Geography, we disbursed approximately HK$ 50 million for research to eight universities in the Special Administrative Region. I am halfway through a six-year term (maximum), which guarantees me three more annual visits to Hong Kong.

We also made a UGC advisory visit to the University of Hong Kong. My assignment was to meet with the dean and colleagues in the Faculty of Medicine, which includes the School of Nursing. The University of Hong Kong is the oldest in Hong Kong and, for 50 years, its only university. Currently, the president and vice-chancellor is Peter Mathieson, a nephrologist from the United Kingdom. En route to a meeting, he introduced himself to me in the elevator, and I was able to tell him I was from the University of Hull. The University Grants Council, under which the Research Grants Council (RGC) sits, hosted an excellent banquet on the final working day.

Friends, old and very new

Graeme and Maggie Smith with Nathaniel

Outside of meetings, I had dinners with a series of old friends and colleagues, including Eric Chan, MBA, RN, dean of Caritas Institute of Higher Education and member of GAPFON. I extended my stay to attend a 100 Days celebration for Nathaniel Smith, 100-day old son of my good friends Graeme Smith, PhD, RN, of Edinburgh Napier University (UK) and his wife Maggie. I attended their wedding here six years ago. This was my first meeting with Nathaniel, and I think I made quite an impression.

The weather is always a topic of conversation in Hong Kong, something I think the locals inherited from the days of British colonisation. It’s been wet, humid, and increasingly hot over the course of the past week. That’s the same as usual, but during my 12-month absence a new high-rise building has risen on the Kowloon side of the harbour. Also, Louis’s Steakhouse, Hong Kong’s oldest and one of my favourite places to eat, has closed, priced out of business by rising rents in the Wan Chai district. I am lucky this year, because I will be back in Hong Kong in early July en route to Australia. I am taking my son Joseph, and we are meeting my daughter Lucy. Some of that will feature in my next entry.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

China: Hot food and hot weather

LUZHOU, Sichuan Province, China—I have been in China this week, making my third visit to what is currently known as The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University. On each visit, the name has changed—on one hand, as the status of the institution has risen, and, on the other hand, as objections from elsewhere in the province have risen about the name that is being used. Apparently, there are objections to the current name, and it may well change again before I return. Whatever the name, the hospital I visit here is in the same place: Luzhou, China, on the banks of the mighty Yangtze River.

Ostensibly, my visit here is to deliver a lecture at an international conference on transitional care. My topic? Telemonitoring of older people. When asked by other presenters if I am an expert on the subject, my reply was: “Well, I am now!” I have to admit to only a passing acquaintance with telehealth in any of its varieties, and there is much greater expertise available on the topic at my university. But I am the visiting professor here, and I am expected to know everything.

Yours Truly with Pulon Chang, Yang-Ming University,
Taipei, Taiwan; Frances Wong, Hong Kong Polytechnic
University; and Du Yihua, president, The Affiliated Hospital 
of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, Sichuan, China.

I enjoyed reading about telehealth and telemonitoring and, with the help of my old friend and interpreter Daniel Liu, I managed to deliver my session. I am also very grateful to David Barrett, PhD, RN, senior lecturer on my faculty at the University of Hull, for some PowerPoint slides based on his recent research. Otherwise and more significantly, I am here to continue collaboration between the hospital and my university. We have already graduated one doctoral student, and we plan to have academic visitors and additional doctoral students.

About the food

Guess who.

Food was plentiful and spicy as ever. My hosts outdid themselves one night when we visited a very traditional restaurant. My advice: If you have doubts about spicy food, avoid anything labelled “traditional.” Not for the first time in Luzhou, I was rendered speechless by some of the food, which combines the heat of chillies and the local specialty spice, which I now know is colloquially called “tip of the tongue,” as it renders the tip of your tongue, lips, and inner cheeks numb. You can’t speak, and neither should you, until the effect passes. The only known antidote is cold beer, also plentiful. I ran on the banks of the Yangtze River again, but the weather was too hot for anything very serious.

Climbing

Finally, after some procrastination, I returned to the climbing wall, my first visit in nearly 10 months. I really enjoyed my half hour (all I could manage) but have been unable to return due to a severe shortage of skin on my fingers, which are mostly healed now. I’m ready for a second visit soon.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be published.

If it's Wednesday, I must be in Spain!

RIYADH, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—I’ve been mostly confined to Europe recently, but that’s not a complaint. In fact, it has been pleasant to take short flights for a change, and those flights—and two rail journeys—have taken me to Edinburgh, Belfast, Manchester, Madrid, and Genoa. This has given me a respite from the medium to long hauls that started with Qatar and Saudi Arabia (reported here), followed in quick succession with trips to China, Hong Kong, and Australia, all with return flights to the UK.

Edinburgh

I take every chance I can to visit Edinburgh. My recent trip was to address a conference of doctoral students and staff members on using social media to promote research (click here for podcast). In doing so, I mentioned this blog. In fact, on my travels I meet a great many people who read “Hanging smart.”

The conference was held at Edinburgh Napier University, and I used the opportunity to meet my oldest school friend—of 55 years standing—for dinner. On the way to meet him, a colleague from Pamplona, Spain contacted me to ask what I knew of Nan Shepherd. My friend in Spain is interested in all things Celtic, and he knew I came from the same area of Scotland as Shepherd: Royal Deeside. That morning Shepherd, a writer of novels and poems, was featured in the news as only the second woman—the first being Florence Nightingale—to have her image on a UK bank note and the first woman featured on a Scottish bank note. (Scottish banks have always had their own bank notes.)

“Where’s this going?” I hear you ask. My host and old school friend is the “honorary” grandson of Nan Shepherd, his mother having been brought up by her, and his brother Erlend Clouston (former journalist and hotelier extraordinaire) is Nan Shepherd’s literary executor. Later, on this European journey, I had dinner with my Celtic colleague in Pamplona and was able to recount this extraordinary coincidence.

Belfast and Manchester

My visit to Belfast was to examine the thesis of a doctoral student at Queen’s University Belfast. I felt very sorry for the student as my flight was delayed two hours, and I doubted I would make it. I took the flight, conducted the examination with both eyes on my watch, and was back at Belfast City Airport approximately 90 minutes after arriving, only to suffer another delay of nearly one hour.

In the meantime, I was speaking on my phone at every opportunity to the Saudi Health Office in London about my visa for the next visit, and they were doubtful if they could get it to me within a week. The problem was, I needed my passport within the week for a visit to Spain. At the last minute, and at great inconvenience to my contact there, the visa was obtained. Sometimes, I wonder if the stress is worth it. The day after my return from Belfast, I was in Manchester to address the Saudi Association in the UK on “Writing your thesis: Chapter by chapter” and “The four rules of writing your thesis” (both available as podcasts).

Spain

About to address nursing alumni
at the University of Navarra.

I was pleased to complete, before leaving the UK again for a few days in Spain, one major piece of work for our associate dean for learning and teaching and also to make significant progress with a research grant proposal. I flew to Madrid to address alumni of the University of Navarra School of Nursing, Pamplona campus, on “'Keeping the science in nursing,” and then I was off by train to Pamplona in the north of Spain, made famous by Ernest Hemingway for its running of the bulls. Although I had been in Spain recently, many years had passed since visiting either Madrid or Pamplona.

With former doctoral students Christina Oroviocoicoechea,
Silvia Corchon, and Ana Carvajal at the University of Navarra.

Madrid and the University of Navarra, which was established by the Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, hold a special place in my academic career. It was there, in 1991 when I was at the University of Edinburgh, that we had an exchange programme for staff and my international career began. It was there that I first lectured through translators, occupied a desk in a university outside the UK, spent prolonged periods (other than military service) away from my family, and began to see the potential of international work.

I have had great success with four doctoral students from Pamplona who studied with me in the UK, three of whom are now good colleagues (one decreased, sadly), and I have established strong professional and family links. My oldest daughter Hannah came here with me when she was 8 years old. She made two other family-exchange visits and then returned in the final year of her nursing diploma to work in critical care for a month, which led to her securing a job in critical care in the UK. Hannah has remained in critical care and is on the verge of qualifying as an advanced nurse practitioner.

We also have additional family ties here in that another of my colleagues and his wife are godparents to my son Joseph. My visit to Pamplona was to address colleagues on writing and publishing in impact-factor English nursing journals (podcast), in addition to attending a doctoral student examination and holding other meetings with faculty members in the School of Nursing.

Italy

I returned to the University of Genova in Genoa on the Ligurian coast of Italy. One of the hazards here is that, whereas Spanish women greet you with two kisses, right cheek first, in Italy they greet you with two kisses, left cheek first. Get it wrong, and a nasty head butt or a clash of spectacles can easily take place. This visit was to make further progress on some research work, establish a new project, and continue working on publications with doctoral students. I also managed a 10-mile run on my final morning.

Middle East

Passing through the UK, I transferred from London Gatwick to London Heathrow at the weekend and proceeded to Doha in Qatar for lunch with Richard Gray, PhD, RN, of Hamad Medical Corporation before flying on to Riyadh to deliver on Monday two papers at the nursing stream of the Saudi Health 2016 Conference. Tomorrow, I meet with colleagues at King Saud University and then fly home via Doha.

Running

Between trips to Spain and Italy, I spent one day at home and took part in the Beverley 10k race. It was not my best effort and, for the UK, it was hot (20 Celcius, 68 Fahrenheit). I have had difficulty finding the time and the right places to do the sort of fast training you need for races. However, with my youngest son injured at the moment, at least I was the fastest Watson at 51:05. My ambition to beat 45 minutes will have to wait for another race.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.