EDITORIAL

Sharing resources in nursing

In October 1986 the oldest weekly nursing jour- nal in the UK (Nursing Times/Nursing Mirror) announced the start of Nursing Aid, a campaign to raise &IO0 000 to support three nursing pro- jects in developing countries. The three projects

to be supported are a health centre run by a nurse in Eritrea, a nursing programme to restore malnourished children to health and offer advice and support to their families in Honduras, and the training of 85 village midwives in Burma. It is, as the Editorial says, ‘a statement about the role of nursing and its huge untapped potential . a celebration of nursing and its capacity both

to save lives and improve the quality of those lives’. The fund is growing as nurses give to help each other and those needing nursing care.

Nurses have a long tradition of giving to those

in need, giving of time and energy often beyond the requirements of their employer’s contract. The articles which follow indicate the many ways in which intensive care nurses give of their pro- fessional abilities, providing life-maintaining and rehabilitative care for those paralysed by disease or drugs, supportive care for those dependent in other ways, and education and skill-training for parents whose infants require special care when they go home.

But there are many ways of giving, and the AACN Second International Intensive Care Conference in the Netherlands in August 1986 was also a great example of how nurses give to each other. The title of the conference was Exchanging Strengths in Practice, and there were over 800 participants from 39 countries, Language barriers were overcome, with trans- lation of many sessions into Japanese and often two other languages, and many nurses met the challenge of using English as a second language in public. Often those of us who speak English as our first language may forget what courage it takes for someone to attend a major conference where English is the main language, when their

only real experience of using it has been in school or in trying to read it. The conference atmos- phere was outstandingly friendly; as the confer- ence daily newsheet said, everyone was ‘enjoying the Dutch hospitality, the interesting and thought-provoking lectures, and the opportunity to make new friends and exchange ideas with international colleagues’. Nurses gave each other friendship and encouragement.

But the comment quoted indicates that they gave each other much more than that. They gave of their knowledge and practical skills and wis- dom, through lectures, through clinical topic ses- sions, research presentations, and in skills

workshops such as those on haemodynamic monitoring, or problem solving. All the sessions were presented by nurses. This may not seem re-

markable to those just beginning to attend con- ferences, but it is not long since man, of the speakers at such a conference would have been doctors.

Like Nursing Aid the Intensive Care Confer- ence was also a celebration of nursing; a celebra- tion of nurses’ growing maturity in sharing with each other the resources they have, through speaking and writing, and teaching skills in workshops. Many nurses have been hesitant or reluctant to teach others even in ther own unit. Yet almost every nurse has something to share which could help at least one other person in

their unit and perhaps others elsewhere. Patients will only receive the best possible care if all nurses are willing to share what they have. There is no place for ‘knowledge in power, and I’m going to keep it for myself’ in intensive care.

There are topics of interest to intensive care nurses which can best be dealt with by doctors or others because of their particular expertise. But nurses are the experts in nursing, and can best speak or write with authority on it.

The 1986 conference was a very exciting one, particularly as nurses from different countries

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spoke briefly about intensive care nursing in their We hope to publish papers by some of the own countries. The circumstances in some cases speakers at the 1986 conference, so those who were very different, but the commitment of the were not there will not miss the content com- nurses to care and some of the basic problems pletely. But now is the time to start saving to at-

faced are similar. Although some countries have tend the next AACN International Intensive Care much more ‘high-tech’ equipment than others, Nursing Conference in Montreal 1988-and de-

nurses in those areas can still learn from each other, as illustrated by one participant’s com- ments ‘I’ve gotten some really practical and useful information that I can use in my practice in Colombia-some good ideas that are not

expensive’. Such conferences, both at international and

national level, demonstrate that many intensive care nurses echo Margaretta Styles’ statement ‘I believe in myself and in my nursing col- leagues. . . . I believe that nursing’s maximum contribution for social betterment is dependent

on . . . the ability of the profession to maintain

veloping the ideas you may share with others there.

As Kathleen Dracup said at the beginning and end of her opening address on Evolution of Critical Care Nursing: ‘Critical care nursing is relatively new as a practice speciality, being less than 30 years old.. . . We know that we are no longer what we once were, nor are we yet what we can be’ (Dracup, 1986). There is still undevel- oped potential.

References unity within diversity’ (Styles, 1982). In the midst of all the economic constraints and other

Dracup K 1986 Evolution of critical care nursing. Conference Book. Second International Intensive Care

problems that is what matters, that nurses believe Nursing Conference, The Hague, Netherlands, August

in nursing, the worth of its contribution to health 1986 p. 41. American Association of Critical Care Nurses

care, and its power in unity as nurses develop, Editorial 1986 Nursing Times/Nursing Mirror 82 (40): 3

support and strengthen each other. Styles M 1982 On Nursing. Towards a New Endowment.

Mosby, St Louis London. p. 137