A Future of Global Nursing
Welcome to our celebration of 25 years as a division of Johns Hopkins University and 120 years of nursing education at Hopkins.
Throughout this issue, we look back at our history and ahead to our next quarter century. You’ll find remembrances through the decades from and about our students, alumni, faculty, and hospital colleagues (“They Must Be Hopkins Nurses,” p. 32); a report from our alumni survey on where Hopkins nurses are and what they are doing (“Survey Says’,” p. 36); and photos capturing the experiences of this year’s Homecoming (p. 54).
Looking toward the future, we explore the generational differences and similarities in yesterday’s and today’s educators and students and how both learn from one another in a rapidly changing, increasingly technology driven environment (“Nursing: The Next Generation,” p. 20). You’ll also see a sidebar in that article about other trends, including the Who Will Care? grant that has created a clinical redesign model, the Clinical/Academic Practice Partnership (CAPP). And, for some light-hearted amusement, be sure to check out what the nurse of the future will be wearing (inside front and back covers).
As we commemorate the past and prepare for the future, these major trends of technology integration in teaching and academic-service partnerships are occupying much of my time and attention and that of our faculty and staff. And, an ever-present trend we cover in each issue of this magazine (Global Nursing, p.16), that permeates all aspects of our work, is global health.
We are not alone. Across the country and around the world, global health has become the hot topic. At Hopkins it is the second most popular undergraduate major in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Among the School of Nursing students, their interest in helping underserved communities and people everywhere grows each year. In response, more and more of our curriculum is taking on a global and community health component, and we now are working with the Carey Business School to link its new Global MBA with our MSN programs.
When we “go global,” we work in communities and institutions both here and abroad to discover, learn, teach, and build collaborations and capacities. And when we come back to the School, from our neighborhoods in Baltimore or nursing schools and communities across the globe, we apply the lessons we have learned to our academic and research strategies; we build on and refine our approaches to include the best of evidenced-based practice and policy.
Global health is the broader umbrella term for what Hopkins and all of America’s research intensive universities can bring–today and tomorrow–to the health of countries, communities, and individuals. By combining the best practices of nursing, medicine, public health, engineering, business, and anthropology, and focusing on both domestic and international collaborations, our approaches become more holistic, integrative, and successful.
As we wrap-up our anniversary celebrations and look toward the next decade, I see global health as not just a hot topic, but the focus for our next quarter century. 2010 is the International Year of the Nurse, serving as the launch year of the UN Decade for a Healthy World (2011 to 2020). Brought about in part through the work of the grassroots, nurse-inspired Nightingale Initiative, these events offer a world forum for those who will be key to the delivery of tomorrow’s global health: nurses.
I call on all of you reading this column to join me in exploring those opportunities and in determining our strategies for the next decade and beyond. Let me know your thoughts and ideas at [email protected].
Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN, ’64
Dean
Professor of Nursing, Medicine and Public Health