The School

Dean's Page

May 2009
The Era of Global Nursing

Katharyn A. May, DNSc, RN, FAAN

When historians look back on these challenging times, they may indeed christen them “the Global Age.” Globalism affects our lives in any number of ways. We have a global economy. The Internet brings the globe to our fingertips, and thanks to global communications, we are literally only a cell phone call away from anywhere in the world.

For U.S. nurses, no matter where they live, the rest of the world is now literally at our doorstep. As global health becomes a dominant theme in our lives, what will it mean for nurses and nursing?

I am not an expert in global health or international nursing. However, several of my colleagues in the school are, and through their commitment, knowledge, and experience, our students are gaining a larger view of nursing and health. For what it's worth, I did gain a certain perspective from leading a school of nursing in another country for six years. It forever changed how I think about the world and about nursing.

Here are three of the lessons I've learned:

• If you think nursing is a big idea–hard to describe and hard to measure–try thinking about global health. We are seeing old diseases in new places, such as diabetes in the Eastern Arctic and Uganda. We are also seeing HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, with too few nurses to provide care. International travel now makes it possible for a pandemic disease to "jump" countries faster than public health workers can contain it, challenging us to respond in new ways.



• It is very, very difficult to escape what I call the "tyranny of the familiar." At the very moment when you think you have come to appreciate and understand difference, you are most at risk for acting out the part of the "ugly American" for real. The country we live in is vast, and it is just too varied to take our familiarity with it for granted.



• The world is now right at our doorstep, and we all have a responsibility to help our students leave the house, as it were. Nursing is a powerful force for social good, and our planet needs that, perhaps more than ever before.

Indeed, the era of global nursing is upon us, and we must prepare our current and future nursing students for it. You will see a perfect example of how global nursing has come to the School of Nursing's doorstep in international graduate students Amal Muhamad Rashid Abu-Awad, Sasithorn Laimek, and Shamim Usman. The three PhD students–the most recent in a long series of international students to come to the school–have left their respective homes in Palestine, Thailand, and Pakistan to study in America. I am certain that the research knowledge they will gain here will benefit those in their native lands, just as our school and our profession benefit from their presence and from sharing ideas on the global stage.

Katharyn A. May, DNSc, RN, FAAN
Dean and Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Nursing