HKU_Newsletter_Issue 40_Preview

H ead’s Message Hand in Hand Creating Tomorrow Prof Chia-Chin Lin Professor and Head The 7 th Hong Kong International Nursing Forum Hand in Hand Creating Tomorrow: Nursing Practice, Education and Research was held in December last year and its title reflects our philosophy as a School of Nursing. We can only create our desired future for patient care and health care more generally through collaborating at all levels: with our students, our university and practice based colleagues, our funders, our local, regional and international colleagues and collaborators and most importantly with our patients. Undertaking practice improvements, educational innovations and research endeavours in collaboration with all our stakeholders is the key to creating the tomorrow we want. Our Forum was an outstanding demonstration of international collaboration and connection. It brought together over 500 participants from many places: Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, China, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, The Philippines, The United Kingdom, The United States, and Vietnam. Not surprisingly, the highest number of participants were from Hong Kong and these included nurses from universities, hospitals, government, the Hospital Authority and various NGOs. Over 100 participants came from mainland China and these included nurses from both universities and hospitals. A record high of 36 co-organisers attended from many places and they supported our scientific forum through a range of activities. The inspirational keynote addresses highlighted various aspects of the themes of the conference and suggested a broad range of ways in which we can shape the future of nursing through collaboration. There were several take-home messages for me: the future will be about working with media and other groups to help us to strengthen the nursing voice through shaping and disseminating the image of nursing and its values; it will be about opening ourselves to a range of innovative ideas to work with other health professionals and with patients to influence health policy to ensure better health outcomes for the most needy and vulnerable members of our population; it will be about working with patients in co-designing our research proposals to ensure they specifically address patient needs; and it will be about strengthening the role and impact of public health nursing to help to shift towards a more upstream approach to health care. A most significant event which took place during the Forum was the Memorandum of Agreement signing ceremony for the Southeast and East Asian Nursing Education and Research Network (SEANERN). The MoA outlines the cooperation in nursing education and research in the countries and regions. Representatives from Nursing Schools of 13 Southeast and East Asia countries and regions took to the stage for the signing. This network will promote educational and research collaborations in nursing. As the only nursing institution in the territory to be a signatory of the SEANERN MoA, the School is dedicated to further develop and improve nursing education and research as well as sharing of clinical nursing practice and resources in Southeast and East Asia. In this way we can work collaboratively to create our shared future. N urseLetter Mar 2018 ISSUE 40 Vision to L ead Mission to Serve