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.

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.