Global citizens

The theme for this year’s International nurse’s day is “Nursing: The Balance of Mind, Body, and Spirit”. This is a great opportunity for nurses around the world to stop and reflect to celebrate the contributions that nurses make to societies around the world. This year’s theme is all about nurses who lead to promote health and wellbeing for their patients, their families and themselves. This requires for nurses to be strong advocates to lead the change. However, our advocacy efforts must extend beyond the patient. Nurses are at the forefront of leading change and are required to be an advocate within legislation, regulation and in local communities. Our world is changing, there are many global issues effecting health care. The current workforce challenges are just one example. Others include the global burden of disease and the age of our populations. These global issues are impacting on professional practice. We must ensure that to be a true advocate nurses have the knowledge and skills and commence with taking care of ourselves and each other.

As a nurse to have experience of nursing care and development of knowledge in another country is one opportunity to see healthcare practice from a very different perspective. It gives the opportunity to visit another country, develop new skills and become immersed in a new culture. At Northumbria University we have a growing portfolio of international partnerships which enables learning and teaching and the development of knowledge to take place. Following are personal accounts and insights from staff and students engaged in international exchanges which is contributing to development of self to be an advocate for change.