Back in Southeast Asia

SINGAPORE—I am not sure if anyone has ever died of jet lag, but if there is a theory related to this, I am testing it to its limit. I have just made my third flight between the U.K. and Hong Kong in a month, and, since the end of September, I have made that journey four times with a round-the-world flight thrown in for fun. I am back in Singapore, the source of another post exactly one year ago, where I will spend four weeks teaching, consulting, and writing. The weather is doing its equatorial best to wear me down, but spending most days in short trousers and short-sleeved shirts is no hardship; I left the U.K. shivering autumnally and preparing for winter.

Bangkok weekend

My first week is over. I’m pleased that my wife has joined me for most of the first two weeks. We both have many friends in the region and none more so than Sally Wai-Chi Chan, PhD, MSc, BSc, RTN, RMN, FAAN, outgoing head of the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies at the National University of Singapore, and her husband, Bing Shu Cheng, who has been working here in the Ministry of Health. We also have friends in Bangkok, and our first weekend was spent there with Alex Aziz and his family.

Mrs. Watson, Roger Watson, Sally Wai-Chi Chan, and Bing Shu Cheng.

Alex was one of my former students but not of nursing. I used to be a university warden at The University of Edinburgh. The system of wardens is one whereby academic and other staff live with their families in university premises alongside the students. Our role is mainly pastoral, and we are allocated one block or house of several hundred students. Alex, who lived and worked in our residence at Edinburgh in the early 1990s, works with the International Labour Organisation in Bangkok, an agency of the United Nations dedicated to improving the lives of workers across the globe. Alex actually featured in our faculty blog when he met out mutual colleague, Mark Hayter, PhD, RN, FAAN, on a visit to Bangkok.

Distinguished editors

In addition to me, there are two other distinguished editors on campus, and I went to hear them speak about global health at a lunchtime seminar today. They are Richard Horton, BSc, MB, FRCP, FMedSci, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, and Howard Bauchner, M.D., editor-in-chief of JAMA. These were interesting and inspiring talks; neither of these editors of two of the world’s leading medical journals displayed any kind of medical hegemony or superiority regarding their eminent journals.

Howard Bauchner makes a point.

I was interested to hear Bauchner say that JAMA received more than 5,000 submissions annually and publishes only 5 percent of them. He told us how his own interest in global health developed and also discussed difficulties in defining global health. Both editors reflected on the growing importance of noncommunicable diseases and the ethical aspects of global health. 

Richard Horton in action.

Horton explained his vision of global health and how evidence for successful health initiatives could be presented to world leaders. I was especially struck by his vision for The Lancet—that it should be “more than a journal” and how, under some circumstances, The Lancet has acted like an NGO (nongovernmental organisation) in trying to influence the global health agenda and related decision-makers.

In my next post, I’ll be reporting again from Singapore, on the forthcoming 2nd NUS-NUH International Nursing Conference, which runs parallel with the 18th Malaysia-Singapore Nursing Conference. I am giving a paper on research into feeding difficulty in dementia. My wife returns to the U.K. at the end of this week after celebrating my birthday. I’ve chosen the iconic IndoChine restaurant in Gardens by the Bay. As I say, no hardship!

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

Meet Professor Sally Wai-Chi Chan!

SINGAPORE—I am spending a month in Singapore, the “melting pot” of Southeast Asia. Singapore is a melting pot for two reasons. First, the heat and humidity are excruciating. Even the mildest exercise outdoors induces profuse perspiration and laboured breathing. The only respite this time of year is the daily monsoon downpour, but even that is lukewarm.

Singapore is also a melting pot in another sense; it is one of the most multicultural places in the world. And it is entirely peaceful. Draconian sentencing and harsh punishments by the local judiciary tend to enforce good manners and tolerance. Nevertheless, appreciation of other cultures seems genuine. The place is fabulously rich with 17 percent of the population being millionaires (Singapore dollars).

This visit—my third to Singapore—is to the National University of Singapore, currently ranked No. 25 in the world in QS World University Rankings (No. 2 in Asia). Specifically, I am at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, located in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, recently ranked the top medical school in Asia by QS. Founded in 2006, the centre is led by Professor Sally Chan.

Sally Wai-Chi Chan

I have known Sally for more than 20 years, ever since we both arrived in Edinburgh. I was a new lecturer and Sally, along with her husband Bing-Shu Cheng, was a new MSc in nursing student. A decade later, we met again when Sally was working in the Nethersole School of Nursing at Chinese University of Hong Kong, where I had been appointed external examiner for their master’s in nursing programme. Thus began my frequent travels to the Far East and Southeast Asia and a rekindled professional relationship with Sally.

Sally is energetic, ambitious and productive. She has always been visible and vocal, both as a student and as an academic. Her leadership in mental health nursing research and the mark she made on delivery of services in Hong Kong is remarkable, and her output of publications is impressive. Sally was clearly destined for leadership, and she is now in a key position to lead the development of this relatively new centre and to contribute to academic nursing in Singapore.

I am lucky to benefit from being one of a succession of international visiting scholars and professors to the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies. Sally has made it her trademark to work with the best and learn from the best. In turn, those of us lucky enough to come here frequently learn a great deal from the diligence, dedication and sheer hard work of the local academic and nursing population. Working days are long here, but the rewards are concomitant.

Sally is an outward-looking, horizon-scanning person, and this was recently exemplified by her visit to my own University of Hull. At present, Singapore does not allow nurse prescribing, but an ageing demography, together with nursing and medical-personnel shortages, will necessitate some new approaches to delivery of care and some shifting of professional boundaries. Sally wants to be at the forefront of this change, and the purpose of her visit to the United Kingdom was to learn about nurse prescribing programmes—Hull was a pioneer in this respect—and to see what links could be formed to help prepare her for advancing this initiative in Singapore.

Leadership

Leadership is hard to define but obvious when you see it. It is demonstrated in many ways and under different circumstances. The circumstances in Singapore could not be more ready for leadership such as that displayed by Sally Chan and, as a result of her far-sighted thinking in pursuing an academic career in Australia and the United Kingdom, (largely outside her native Hong Kong), she could not have been more ready for her current leadership role.

I often ponder my own leadership skills and wonder if the opportunity awaits me to demonstrate them; it has eluded me to date! Next week finds me in Bangkok and then Hong Kong before I head home to the UK for Christmas. In the meantime, at leisure, I think about the vagaries of professional and academic life, and where better to do so than the world-famous Long Bar of Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

"Barman!"

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