Earlier this month QNIS were proud to host the ICCHNR’s event ‘Bringing Curiosity & Analysis to Community Nursing: Lisbeth Hockey, her Legacy’ in association with The University of Edinburgh. The lecture was given by Professor Dame Anne Marie Rafferty, President of the Royal College of Nursing and Professor of Nursing Policy at King’s College London, and is now available to watch online.
Dr Sarah Doyle, QNIS Deputy Director (Nursing) attended the event and offers the following words on Lisbeth Hockey.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, Lisbeth’s experience of having her life disrupted by events beyond her control, she emerged as a hugely influential change-maker of her time. Her studies in medicine were cut short by the Second World War, and she arrived in London as a refugee from Austria. Soon after, she began training as a nurse but this too was halted, by a change in the law preventing non-British subjects nursing prisoners of war. Undeterred, Lisbeth persisted and in the end succeeded in qualifying as a general nurse, district nurse, midwife and health visitor.
Lisbeth questioned everything in order to better understand, and this inspired her to complete a PhD and advocate for nursing to become a research-based profession. As the director of the first Nursing Research Unit in the UK, at the University of Edinburgh, Lisbeth argued for a programmatic approach to nursing research. She wanted to build international capacity for community nursing research, and to ensure small projects contributed to a wider understanding in ways that could really shape nursing practice.
She was a woman of influence and action, putting evidence to work for the benefit of society. A nurse committed to questioning and questing, an example for us all.
Click here to watch the recording available on the ICCHNR website.
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