July 2013 :
At the beginning of the month we spoke with Professor Jacqueline Filkins about our poster for the Zurich ENDA conference in October. We have had many great ideas about how to convey our message. This is the first time we have had the opportunity to present a poster.
Hand-outs were prepared and meetings were held in Bristol for the courses in English for Intenstive Care and English for International Disaster Nursing, which are gradually taking shape. The agenda for the course is now complete so all that remains is to finalise the content of the course.
The German Confederation of Midwives has booked us in 2014 for a series of workshops . We now have the chance to present our teaching in Karlsruhe. We have extended our orgiginal hand-outs to include a module called English for Midwives. We are also preparing for the International Conference in Prague.
The program for the international nursing exchange with Hamburg has been completed and nurses from Germany are due to arrive in Bristol. A final meeting at the university in Bristol (UWE) helped us to finalise the details and the course documents have been sent to our partners in Hamburg.
Our English for Nurses lecturer Steffi again traveled to Scotland, while Sarah our lecturer in English for Nurses and Catastrophe Nursing spent a very enjoyable time in Spain and Portugal.
The article ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ for the Journal for Nursing Practice will be sent to the editorial office in Berlin. It will be published in September.
We are delighted and excited because the publication will reach a readership of over 2000 nurses . We were also very pleased to accept an offer to write more articles, of which the first will be about peripheral CVCs.
We made further plans for our courses in German for Nurses and discussed our ideas with leaders of nursing in Germany and Switzerland. The first thematic units will be posted in August.
St Thomas and Guy’s Hospital in London has confirmed that it will provide internships for 2014. We are incredibly happy about the news which will allow young people to come to England and broaden their skills and knowledge with us. We are so pleased to support this new and exciting project.
August 2013:
We met the Deputy PDL of the Bundeswehr hospital in Westerstede and discussed the the possibility of us teaching their staff for international posts as well as ensuring they are equipped to deal with foreign patients in the BW Hospital. We presented our ideas and initial thoughts for our new course, English for International Disaster Nursing.
We also completed our posters and flyers for ENDA in Zurich. In Switzerland we will also have the opportunity to to discuss our ideas for the German for Nurses course and also to visit with the Nursing Director of the Hirslanden. The PDL from Aarau / Switzerland actively supports us in our projects and will go with us to ENDA .
We discussed and made great progress with the details for our new course English for Intensive Care.
In Bremen we further discussed the German for Nurses course. Our task is now to establish the course and handouts by the end of the year. This will be a great challenge but one we have enthusiastically accepted!
Our teacher Sarah has been working diligently with our Facebook page and we are thrilled to have reached the milestone of 100 Likes!
We talked to the aspiring professor of the University of Lausitz . A meeting was scheduled for October to discuss the possibility of a partnership for 2014.
The Catholic University in Cologne will support us in delivering our English for Midwives workshop in November. The flyer for the invitation has been sent to the senior professor . We are very excited about having made this important contact.
Magda ( English for Nurses ) has been on a wonderful vacation in her home country of Catalonia/Spain. Meanwhile, Sabine , Steffi and Sarah , have been holding the fort in Bristol … and countless cookies, Mars bars and herbal teas have been successfully consumed this month.
September 2013 :
Earlier this month we attended the Overseas Nurses meeting in Bristol. Everyone spoke about their personal experiences in a lovely and relaxed atmosphere. We taught colleagues from the Czech Republic and are happy to have been slowly expanding the number of overseas nurses we are now teaching in Bristol.
We are extremely pleased to have completed our first hospital contract in the UK! The University Hospital in Swindon has booked us to teach 40 international nurses. The courses are in November 2013 and December 2013. We are over the moon to have made this important first step. This is our first job in the National Health System …. and we hope that more will soon follow.
Sabine (Lecturer) has recharged her batteries during a very welcome holiday in Italy. Meanwhile, Sarah and Magda look after the operation here in England.
Our October tour has been planned. The posters and flyers for the ENDA have also been completed and we were very pleased with the results.
We are also excited to confirm that we will be teaching 40 overseas nurses in England. This is a great success for English for Nurses and one that has been 2 years in the waiting!
The Grand Canyon University called us about a potential E-Learning program for their nurses in the US. We look forward to further discussions in October.
The Netherlands would also like to book us for the Dutch students (nursing students as well as students from professional social work sector) for various workshops for 2014. These students are due to travel to Ireland for their internships. Including Hamburg this will be the second time we have been actively involved in a student exchange. We also sent out the agenda to Kings College London for a meeting in October about the Hamburg student exchange.
October 2013
A week in Switzerland is planned & the first independent hospital workshop in Zurich is organized. Colleagues from Basel and Zurich are taking part. Also, the project entitled ” Deutsch für Pflegende (German for Nurses)” will be presented to the head of Zurich nursing homes. We also have the chance to meet the head of the learning academy of the University Hospital in Zurich and the Director of Nursing at the Hirslanden clinic and introduce our handout to them. The feedback from Zurich for our work is extremely positive.
The ENDA – conference is a real highlight (please see our Facebook page). Our poster is presented and we have the chance to meet 400 nurse managers from all over Europe. The President of ENDA and and her fellow activists from England, Germany and Austria kindly bring us firmly into the ENDA community. It is pure madness for us to take stock of how far we have come. New acquaintances are made, interesting conversations are held and we are all incredibly happy!
November 2013:
After the visit in Zurich it is straight on to Hamburg to meet with teachers there. They have the opportunity to visit the University West of England (UWE) to discuss a potential student exchange in 2014. They also have the option to visit our Community Hospital in Bristol and to meet the Matron and have discussions with British lecturers and senior members of staff within the NHS This is a great opportunity for them.
Furthermore, a visit to Bremen/Germany is planned. The first Social worker conference in Bremen is held at the Red Cross Hospital. It is of great interest to our German colleagues how we Nurses in Britain work with Social workers within a team. The British health care system is discussed in our presentation and the pros and cons are summarised. The feedback from our presentation is fabulous – we leave with much interest in a return trip.
We held our first workshop in the British National Health System (NHS). We taught 20 Spanish colleagues in ‘English for Nurses’ . For our work here in England, this is a very important breakthrough. We will continue to teach more groups in 2014 including some from Portugal. We are “over the moon” about this development.
The Netherlands is on the horizon for future work 2014. It is extremely exciting for us to be expanding our work within Europe!
December 2013:
We apply for membership of ENDA . After a great conversation with the President of ENDA we are confident that we can participate in international nursing management
.
We have a request from the Croatian Nursing Association in Zagreb who would like to work with us in 2014. The New Vice-President of ENDA ( from Zagreb) has lent excellent support to us.
The new courses English for Student Nurses and Learning and Research in Nursing -an introduction in English have been sent to the University of Senftenberg/Germany. We hope that the leading Professor will find the courses interesting… mars bars and herbal tea will get us over the nerve-wracking time waiting for the results of their evaluations of our courses. At the end – the Uni is very happy with our work! The University is giving us the green light to go ahead so the courses are going into print.
The first registrations for the hospital independent hospital workshop in Hamburg in February 2014 are recorded. The Red Cross Sisterhood in Hamburg introduces us to this location. This is another collaboration which also evolved this year.
Another group of Overseas Nurses (from Portugal) are taught here in the NHS. The evaluations are very positive, which makes us proud!
Furthermore, the project Deutsch für Pflegende (German for Nurses) is presented to an agency in Hamburg. We will discuss our agenda in January. This agency helps to introduce Spanish colleagues to working within the German health system.
And last but not least … we have a new member, Sandra Ludolfs Sullivan who is warmly welcomed into the international family as the first NON-nursing woman. Sandra lives in South Carolina / USA and is an Overseas MTA from the laboratory. She has written the course for us entitled English for Medical Technicians, which will be taught in 2014/2015 . We are happy to be growing in numbers!
And very last but not least, we have reached over 150 ‘friends’ on Facebook!
So …. this is all that has happened in the last few months! We can describe it as eventful, thrilling, exciting and simply ‘fabulous ‘ ….. as well as continuing to work on the wards as nurses and midwives.
Before we say ‘ Goodbye’ – we would like to extend our gratitude to the following people:
• The great ENDA team : Iris Meyenburg Altwarg , Prof. Jacqui Filkins , Christine Ecker, Christa Phonetic : Thank you so much for the warm welcome in Zurich. These days were just amazing. They gave us even more energy for the national as well as international nursing worlds
• Heidrun Pundt (Bremer Pflegerat ) and Katrin Steinsiek (Bremen) – Thanks for your energy for ‘ Deutsch für Pflegende’!
• Kathrin Schlegel (Berlin) – for the great networking with ‘PraxisPflege ‘.
• Also a big thank you to the Swiss Nursing Managers – Thomas Ehret from Zurich for their generous support, as well as Marietta Linner from Aarau . Even if both of your busy schedules are always fully booked , you always have time for us ! Thank you.
Again to all of you – we thank you with all our hearts for continuing to devote your time and attention to following us in our great adventure for the third year
We know that the nursing world is a challenge and with the economic constraints the general situation looks as though it will not become easier. But we always meet great, enthusiastic, optimistic nurses from Germany, Austria , Switzerland, Spain, Portugal , the Czech Republic & Poland who are very happy to say ”We are proud to be nurses”, which is a great statement!
Your EfN-Team from Bristol,
Sabine Torgler
Sarah Davies
Steffi Monoghan
Magda Coll-Clavera
Silke Westphal
Sandra Ludolfs-Sullivan
