The Global Nursing Community: It's a Small World After All
Article Outline
Nursing is a positive force in health care. Nurses are perfectly positioned to make a difference in the world's health, and there is so much we nurses can do—and so much that we must do. Our role cannot be overstated.
An extraordinary experience I had last July illustrates this point. With many colleagues from the United States and 17 other countries, I attended the 17th Congress of the International Council on Women's Health Issues held in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. The urgent business of this multidisciplinary network of health educators, researchers, providers, planners, and advocates from all over the globe was to contribute to the council's overall goal of improving the health of women and girls by enhancing empowerment and decreasing inequity.
I had the privilege of taking part in a panel discussion titled “The Global Nurse Workforce Crisis: A Multi-Sector Response to Positive Practice Environments.” The nursing shortage, including the nurse educator shortage, that plagues us here in the United States is a global problem that has devastating effects on developing countries. The issue of access to health care is an international one. The catastrophic effect of HIV/AIDS that women are disproportionately carrying is a worldwide challenge.
My colleagues on the panel were
We worked well together, absorbing and sharing new information from one another and from the many other participants at the congress. The jet lag was formidable, though, and there are some infamous pictures of nurse leaders during the meeting caught in the rapture of sleep.
It was a splendid conference. Of special note were presenters
These presenters and their presentations were stunning. What an eye-opening experience this was!
A Nursing Education Network
With that kind of collaboration in mind, the National League for Nursing (NLN) has been working hard to help bring together the community of nurse educators from around the world to address and influence issues related to quality nursing education, the preparation and ongoing development of faculty, and the advancement of the science of nursing education. Our international work took a giant step forward with the assembly of the joint NLN/National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC) Global Task Force. Composed of six leading nurse educators with experience in international health care delivery policy and nursing education, INESA—which stands for International Nursing Education Services and Accreditation—oversees much of our work around global issues, including one of the NLN's most exciting initiatives. In recognition of the new international realities of migration dissolving borders between countries, advanced communication technology, global health care, and a worldwide nursing shortage, the NLN approached the ICN in the fall of 2007 with a proposal whose time had come: the creation of the ICN Nursing Education Network.
The ICN's mission to lead society toward better health dovetails beautifully with the mission of nursing education to ensure that graduates enter clinical practice equipped to successfully manage the conditions of health care delivery they encounter. So after soliciting and gaining support from nursing organizations around the world, we asked the ICN to consider establishing this network to promote excellence in nursing education on the global stage, and they responded positively. The network was approved at ICN's May 2008 board meeting, and in January 2009, we were proud to jointly announce the new ICN Nursing Education Network.
Our First Meeting
We've come a long way in a very short time. Today, we are looking forward to the network's first meeting at the 24th ICN Quadrennial Congress, June 27 to July 4, 2009, in Durban, South Africa. Nine countries, along with the NLN and NLNAC through INESA, initially evinced interest and offered support. Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Malta, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States are collaborating on the development of an agenda with the ICN and its member national nursing associations, as well as interested individuals and educational organizations.
The network is still in its infancy; how it develops and evolves will depend on the strengths, talents, and imagination of its participants. Among the primary items for exploration is something that every nurse cares deeply about: the international shortages in the nursing workforce and in nursing faculty that exist in many countries—shortages that make the preparation of a 21st century, diverse nursing workforce a critical priority. The Nursing Education Network also aims to address the quality of student education, working with the ICN Student Network; opportunities and challenges of regulation and practice; and the global health agenda.
The ICN Nursing Education Network launch meeting will take place on Thursday, July 2, 2009, from 10 to 11:50 AM. Proposed objectives for this meeting include
We hope to see you in Durban, South Africa, for this once-in-a-lifetime event. The NLN booth is cosponsored with the Global Knowledge Exchange Network (GKEN) and the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. The NLN, Vanderbilt, GKEN, and Laerdal Medical Corporation Welcome Reception takes place at the Hilton Hotel Polo Club on July 1 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM.
Education and advanced practice are inextricably linked. Our ability to address worldwide nursing issues is relevant to surgical patient care and to AORN. The mission shared by all nurses is to ultimately improve the lives of patients receiving our care. Together, nurses will heal the world.
Introductory note by Cynthia Spry, RN, MA, MSN, CNOR, coordinator, AORN Journal Global Perspectives column: The collaboration of the National League for Nursing and the International Council of Nurses (ICN) in pursuit of strategic initiatives to address the worldwide nursing shortage is encouraging. The demands for surgical services and perioperative nursing care will increase as surely as the world's population will grow. Who will provide this care? Where will the nurses and nurse educators come from, and how will nurses be educated? These questions are critical. Recruitment of nurses from one country to another to address shortages is a temporary solution and one that raises ethical questions about taking resources (ie, nurses) from the very countries that so desperately need them. In the United States, we say, “Every surgical patient deserves a perioperative nurse.” AORN spends its resources on legislative efforts to make this the law in every state. The fact is that every surgical patient in the world deserves a perioperative nurse, but this cannot and will not happen until there are enough nurses so that every patient, surgical or medical, can be attended to by a nurse. Only when there is a large enough pool of nurses in general can we begin to grow the perioperative nursing specialty. AORN has a voice at the ICN through its membership in the International Federation of Perioperative Nurses. We should use this voice not only to support recruitment of nurses but also to encourage incorporation of perioperative nursing into nursing curricula.
PII: S0001-2092(09)00344-5
doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2009.05.020
© 2009 AORN, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc All rights reserved.
