St. Martin's summer in Genoa

GENOA, Italy—Following my return from Australia, October was spent mainly in the UK. Early November finds me back in Genoa, Italy for my final visit of 2015. My visits for next year are planned already. The weather is exceptionally good, and I’m assured this is St. Martin’s summer—a warm spell in early November during the feast of St. Martin before the weather turns cold. I made the best of it with several early-morning runs along the coast.

Mary Seacole Leadership Awards

Soon after returning from Australia, I was in London for the  Royal College of Nursing Mary Seacole Leadership Awards. The event was held at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) in London’s Regent’s Park, and it was a bit like revisiting the scene of an accident. The 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise Nursing and Midwifery subpanel meetings oscillated between the Royal College of Surgeons and the RCOG, both in Regent’s Park, and while I enjoyed my time on that panel, the work was hard and prolonged.

Parveen Ali describes her project
at the Mary Seacole Leadership
Awards ceremony in London.

I was invited to the awards ceremony by my very good friend and colleague Parveen Ali, PhD, RN, senior lecturer, University of Sheffield, one of the recipients in 2014. In addition to receiving her award at this event, she also presented her excellent project on the use of multilingual nursing staff as translators in UK hospitals. Her interest in the subject arose when she was working for a telephone triage service—since discontinued—called NHS Direct. A native of Pakistan, she is a fluent Urdu speaker, but when an Urdu speaker called, she was required to transfer them to a translator. Listening to the translators, who were not nurses, she often heard them misunderstand callers. These services cost a great deal, and she wondered why the National Health Service did not utilize the services of bilingual nurses, both for telephone services and in clinical practice. For her project, she reviewed the policies of many NHS Trusts and found much the same policy—with some anomalies—across England. Her study raises some very interesting points.

Genoa

Links between my own University of Hull and the University of Genoa are strengthening. Our previous dean made a visit with me last year, and colleagues from Hull are working, albeit at a distance, with Genovese colleagues on translation and validation of a questionnaire designed to help in health promotion related to melanoma. Mark Hayter, PhD, FAAN, my colleague of many sojourns to the Far East and a Journal of Advanced Nursing editor, visited two weeks before me and, like me, has a programme of visits planned for 2016 and has also established collaborative projects.

My week here has been spent working with colleagues on a range of research and writing projects and teaching research students about writing for publication. The next visit, which will bring Hayter and me here at the same time, is in February 2016.

Pain

My running continues, but climbing of all sorts and gym work have ceased, because of a deltoid muscle-rotator cuff injury. I can’t pour water out of a kettle, shake hands, use a mouse and keyboard, turn over in bed, or scratch my head without extreme pain. Although I am having physiotherapy and taking some very powerful antiinflammatory medication, I’m still in pain.

Next week, I will be Aberdeen, on the north coast of Scotland, the city of my birth, to take part in a review of the nursing and midwifery education provision at Robert Gordon University. I’m hoping that will be the final flight of 2016, but it looks like I may need to go to Saudi Arabia in late November or early December. Next week, I also celebrate my 60th birthday with family and friends at home in Hull, and then I look forward to a long break at Christmas before traveling to Oman the first week of January.

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.

Between Sydney and Hong Kong

CATHAY PACIFIC FLIGHT 162—Another two-week visit to Australia is over, and I am bouncing back over Typhoon Linfa on the way to Hong Kong. Turbulence on my last few long-haul flights has been bad, and this one is no exception. Like all seasoned flyers, I try not to look worried.

I have been fulfilling my adjunct professor role at the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and visiting my family in Brisbane. The UWS occupies several campuses and, for the first time in many years of visiting, I was in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney, the first week. Situated on the site of a former asylum—a “lunatic” asylum, as it would have been called—the Parramatta campus takes in many of the elegant buildings associated with the place’s former purpose, and the older buildings are complemented by many fine, modern buildings.

Yours Truly with Associate Professor Michelle
Cleary, who organized my visit.

Numerous mental health hospitals in Australia are located on the banks of navigable rivers, as lunatics were not permitted to walk on the Queen’s highway—these institutions were built during the reign of Queen Victoria—and had to travel by boat. A steep set of steps leads from the river to the campus, and I imagine this is how many people were led up to their new and permanent home. I met one of the senior managers of UWS last year and only just managed to stop myself from cracking the old “the lunatics are now running the asylum” joke. He had probably heard it many times before.

With apologies to the occupants of Parramatta, this is not the most salubrious suburb of Sydney, and one of the missions of UWS is to serve these communities. My hotel website boasted “access to a state-of-the-art gym.” There was access, but the gym was a mile into town, a walk I made each evening past less than desirable housing and youth that appeared intimidating. Some of my colleagues were astonished that I had ventured out of my hotel. I reckoned that the sight of an elderly man in shorts and T-shirt in temperatures just above freezing was enough to keep me safe. It was very cold, the coldest winter in Sydney in 17 years.

Family time

The weekend I spent in Brisbane was warmer. I feel blessed to have such a great family, who make me welcome. Apart from Christmas, it is one of the few times of the year I leave work behind, literally in luggage left at the Sydney airport, and spend time with family. I always come away grateful, a few pounds heavier, and with an increased knowledge of Australian wines and beers. (Someone has to do it).

But my time in Australia was not all fun. Back at UWS, I gave a day and a half of writing-for-publication workshops and two video-conference sessions, one on social media and the other on marking theses and dissertations. Otherwise, I held staff consultations about publication plans and kept up to date with editing and supervising—from a distance—my PhD, master’s and final-year students. Two of my PhD students, one from Taiwan and one from mainland China, have completed their theses, and I am arranging for their examinations, which, in the UK, is done by viva voce, otherwise known as the “viva”). The viva is a terrifying prospect for most students, so I expect anxiety levels to be high when I get back to my desk at the University of Hull.

Two busy weeks

I have two weeks of intense activity coming up. It has to be two weeks because, although I have many July deadlines, it is only two weeks before I go on holiday and take the long-suffering and mostly tolerant Mrs. Watson—it’s OK, she never reads my blog—to New York. For the record, this is the first time in 31 years we have been away together on holiday without at least one of our children. We have gone on work-related trips to the Far East and Southeast Asia, but, as I am frequently reminded, those “don’t count.” 

So, before that happens, I have a PhD thesis and a pile of scripts from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland to examine, a handover of my acting associate dean role to the incumbent who is now back in the role, Journal of Advanced Nursing author guidelines to revise, and lots of research data to analyse. I see the seat belt sign is on again, and I am trying not to look worried.

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.

Australian Capital Territory: Like DC, only different

CANBERRA, Australia—Canberra, Australia’s capital city, divides opinion; there are those who love it and those who hate it. This is a planned city, designed by Walter Burley Griffin, an American, and the similarities to America’s capital city are striking.

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), is more modern than Washington, District of Columbia (DC), and has some splendid art deco buildings—my favourite architecture. It also has more post-art deco structures, some of which, frankly, look like they came from the notebook of Albert Speer. Wide boulevards and the fact that the site of the Australian Parliament is called Capital Hill complete the effect. (In Washington, it’s spelled Capitol Hill.)

Walter Burley Griffin is again very much in the public eye here. Fifty years have passed since they named a nearby body of water Lake Burley Griffin. But Burley was Griffin’s middle name, not part of a double-barrelled surname, thus the campaign to rename Lake Burley Griffin simply Lake Griffin.

I get the impression that not much happens here in Canberra. All the political action on Capital Hill is reported in the national press, and The Canberra Times conveys a picture of rural idyllic living. That said, I’m putting my cards on the table and stating that—from my very limited experience of the place—I like Canberra. Being accommodated by ACT Health in the five-star luxury of Hyatt Hotel Canberra helps. Steeped in history, this hotel has been, for decades, the haunt of Australian politicians, many who resided here.

Fantastic art deco stairway in Hyatt Hotel Canberra. 

With its large, comfortable rooms, the hotel is a triumph of art deco style. My bathroom has French windows and is larger than many hotel rooms I have stayed in. The weather has been uncommonly cold—wet on my arrival—so I open the windows only to place my training shoes outside after returning from a run and to retrieve them before my next run, thus preventing the “what’s that smell?” smell my hotel rooms often get after a week or so. Running here is superb, and a loop, approximately four miles in length, goes from my hotel over two bridges that stand at either end of a section of the aforementioned Lake Burley Griffin. I was out at 6 a.m. this morning, and, along the south side of the lake, fitness classes were well underway with group and personal trainers.

ACT Nursing and Midwifery Research Centre Conference

I am here at the generous invitation of Australian Capital Region Health to give a keynote at the 3rd Biennial ACT Nursing and Midwifery Research Centre Conference. I gave that keynote yesterday and titled it “The path to publication.” On the previous day, I presented two workshops on social networking, including blogging, at the University of Canberra and Canberra Hospital.

This morning’s keynote address was presented by Christine Duffield, PhD, RN, who has an excellent track record in conducting nursing workforce research. Today’s address, probably the most authoritative lecture I have heard on the subject, ranged from the place of “assistants in nursing” (Duffield’s generic term for the unqualified, unlicensed “nursing” workforce) to advanced nurse practitioners. She provided a thorough look at nurse-patient ratios in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.

At dinner last night, we were entertained by speaker Matina Jewell. This outstandingly intelligent and articulate lady has an incredible story about her time in Lebanon as an unarmed United Nations treaty monitor, the horrific injuries she received in a military vehicle, and the death of all her comrades. Although she tells the story most nights, she is still moved to tears in retelling it. Her message is about recovering from hitting rock bottom with depression over the loss of her military career and survivor guilt over the loss of comrades she had been leading. She is on Twitter @matinajewell—as I write, I see she has just tweeted me a message—and she deserves more followers than she has.

Hanging smart

I have done little climbing this year and, for the first year since a horrific accident that took place eight years ago, none outdoors. But my genes have been climbing. My oldest daughter, Hannah, recently spent a week in the Pre-Pyrenees in Spain, and her sister Emily has just returned from the Bavarian Alps. I seem to find little time to climb these days, and two trips each to Hong Kong and China, together with trips to Puerto Rico, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia before the first quarter of 2015, will probably further limit climbing. However, the spirit is willing even if the flesh is usually in an airport.

The extent to which my family travels is now becoming a standing joke. At dinner last weekend, my oldest daughter asked where I was flying to this week, and I responded “Dubai,” which was my first stop on the way to Australia. I asked her the same and she said, “Dubai!” We were in Dubai airport within 12 hours of each other.

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.

'And this is winter?'

My daughter’s first words on stepping outside at the Sydney airport form the title to this entry. It gets “cold” here, and there is even snow on the mountains, but what the average Australian considers cold would be an above-average summer day back home in the UK. I have lost count of my visits to Australia, but this is the first time my wife has been here, and I love to see old places through new eyes.

Two of my sons and another of my daughters have already been here, so my wife decided to see what all the fuss was about. In my view, part of the “fuss” is the unique combination of early morning frost in the suburbs of Sydney against the background of a deep blue sky that seems uniquely Australian. By midday, it’s officially warm—by UK standards—yet the locals are in coats and scarves, and, because I am mainly in shirtsleeves, I’m always being asked, “Aren’t you cold?”

View from my hotel.

University of Western Sydney

As mentioned in previous entries from Australia, I’ve been based at the University of Western Sydney (UWS). As the name suggests, the university serves the western side of Sydney but, in fact, it is not really in Sydney at all. It has campuses in Campbelltown, Paramatta and Hawkesbury, with an outpost in Liverpool, the Centre for Applied Nursing Research. During my recent two weeks in Sydney, I visited all the campuses where nursing is provided.

These visits often involve drives that would take you from one side of the UK to another. As with my sense of what is hot and cold here in terms of weather, I have to adjust my sense of distance in this vast country. I told someone I used to drive 60 miles to work and back, trying to instil a sense of horror at this daily feat. They looked at me with a “so what?” expression.

I was really pleased recently to notice that UWS had made the Times Higher Education list of the top 100 universities less than 50 years old (ranked 87th), alongside a very interesting list of younger universities across the world. While here, I have held scholar-in-residence consultations, given two seminars, and I had time to post online slide presentations about open access publishing and the uses and abuses of impact factor. This evening, in the presence of Rhonda Griffiths, dean of nursing and midwifery at the University of Western Sydney, and Scott Holmes, deputy vice chancellor for research and development at the school, I address a function at the university for senior people from local hospitals and health authorities. My topic is “The Francis Report: You simply could not make it up.”

Australia and onwards

This is the first of two visits to Australia this year. In October, I return to Canberra to speak at the 2014 Australian Capital Region Nursing and Midwifery Research Conference.

Aunt Jean, at age 90, the oldest member of the party,
meets the youngest, Rebecca, age 15.

In addition to the professional aspects of my trips here, the past few years of regular visits have enabled me to connect with my extended family of cousins and one remaining aunt. I was especially pleased that my wife and daughter (Rebecca) were able to meet my Aunt Jean, who turned 90 in February.

Tomorrow, we leave Australia for Hong Kong and, after two days, we return to the United Kingdom. August is relatively quiet, but September and October will be intensive with final scores and report writing for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, after which I must turn my attention to the slightly neglected Lancet Commission on UK 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 published.

Up in the air

SOMEWHERE over Australia—Cathay Pacific Flight CX100 left Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia at 2 p.m. After dinner, a film, and a sleep, we are still over Australia, nearly six hours later. This is a vast land with miles and miles of nothing below us most of the time. I have a great fondness for most of the countries I visit regularly. Australia, however, has a special place in my heart.

My family has been associated with this country for more 50 years following the emigration of some of my family, including my grandmother, after the Second World War. Three of my children have been here. It is hard not to like the place. As the early morning flight to Sydney from Brisbane circled the lagoon, clear blue water reflecting a perfect sky made me want to stay a while.

The Sydney skyline.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I am on the way to Hong Kong. After that, it’s on to the U.K. and home to family and work. I have visited four countries in three weeks and have reported on my visits to Ireland and Taiwan. My annual visits to Australia are due to my part-time professorship at the University of Western Sydney, an eponymous university that lies to the west of Sydney. It is spread over several campuses —some of it is a long way from Sydney—and I feel lucky to be based on the Campbelltown, NSW campus, which is relatively rural but within a short train journey of the centre of Sydney.

June to August is the winter season in Australia, and the early mornings were ideal for running. There was frost on the ground and, as the sun rose revealing a cloudless sky, I was able to explore some new parts of town. My academic activities included teaching senior honours undergraduate students about turning their assignments into published articles. I also presented to colleagues on other campuses about increasing their online profile—this blog was referred to—and about ethical issues in academic publishing.

I especially enjoyed giving a lecture to clinical nurse consultants and other clinical colleagues at the Nepean Hospital in Penrith, NSW, on presenting a conference paper. Online lectures are used a lot here, on several campuses, to teach nurses and midwives, and I make a contribution to this by providing links to my online lectures at my own University of Hull. I used my nights alone in the hotel to make one, especially for students here, on writing for quantitative research. You can listen to it and hear what I sound like; don’t be too harsh.

I mentioned my family earlier. My final weekend in Australia was spent in Brisbane, Queensland, where most of my cousins live. This is definitely the best time of year to visit Brisbane, as it is only hot at the moment, as opposed to unbearable. I paid a visit to a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base near Brisbane and had some fun in the cockpit of an RAAF Airbus refuelling plane. It was still on the ground, I emphasise. I then watched the All Blacks (New Zealand) destroy the Wallabies (Australia) at rugby union on television. For North American readers, rugby is American football without the helmets.

Second Officer Watson pretends he knows what he's doing.

Soon, I will be home to spend the rest of October in the U.K. In September, I have several European trips planned. Otherwise, if the weather holds, I will be climbing rocks.

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