After what has been an extended Christmas and New Year
break, the last of the visitors have left the House in Scotland. The village,
which had been very busy over the holidays, is now once again quiet and the
beaches deserted. Cello and I can walk without the distraction of other dogs,
small children, or Christmas kite flying Fathers. Apart from Christmas
and Hogmanay entertaining there have been lots of other distractions over the past
couple of weeks.
For example, I attended our local Village
Community Meeting. It was an extra-ordinary meeting as someone had offered to
buy a small parcel of land owned by the residents of the Village. The offer was
a tempting one as the sum of money on the table will have wiped out most of our
community debt. After much discussion and debate, the decision was taken to
proceed with the sale of the land. It was an interesting meeting and revealed
in full Technicolor, the way in which different generations view the world and
the changes occurring around them. The meeting and possibly the time of year
made me think about some the changes I have seen.
So it was great to see Teresa Chinn
(of the hugely successful Twitter site @wenurses) being recognised
in the New Year’s honours list. Teresa was an agency nurse who found herself professionally
isolated and reached out through social media to connect with other nurses. She has
been credited with bringing the concept of Twitter chats to nursing in the UK. Many
congratulations Teresa for some well-deserved recognition.
The world was a very different
place when I undertook my nurse education and training. Mobile phones and social media didn't exist. I recall being given 1 charcoal grey suit (with 2 pairs of
trousers) and 6 white coats. The white coats were sent to the laundry each week
and returned to every male nurse freshly laundered and pressed. Student nurses
benefited from heavily subsided meals in the hospital canteen, and there was
always cheap beer in the Hospital Social Club.
Nurse education is very different
today. Based around a strong partnership between University, Hospitals and
other clinical practice areas, and patients themselves, nurse education is
aimed at providing future nurses with the underpinning theoretical knowledge
the practical and technical skills of nursing practice and the interpersonal
relationship skills required when working in caring and supportive therapeutic
relationships.
The nurses of the future will
need to be able to practice in a world that has changed so much since I did my
training. What makes Teresa’s achievements so good has been the way she has encouraged
nurses to embrace the digital age. Today there are over 100,000 health apps available
to purchase and many more to freely download. Social media is being used in
a variety of different ways. People blog about their experiences, and social media
is used for self-support and networking. Digital communications have increasingly
become central to the way we live our lives. 83% of homes have internet access,
72% of all adults claim to have purchased goods or services on-line, 50%of us
use internet banking and 53% of adults in the UK access social media sites such
as Twitter and Facebook.
Here at the House in Scotland
there is a new digital innovation. At long last I have fulfilled one of my life
ambitions and have started to generate electricity through solar power. The
system was fitted over 2 of the coldest days of 2014 – but now on the 4th day of 2015, electricity is being produced. My new digital meter tells me
moment to moment how much is being generated as well as providing a running cumulative
total. I can, of course access the information from my phone, laptop and iPad,
and will be able to do so wherever I happen to be in the world. If I sound a little pleased, it’s
because I am – and I am also very proud about being able to contribute to our sustainable
futures.
I am also looking forward to a
different kind of generation. The calendar working year starts tomorrow and
with it comes the opportunity for me to work with a new School senior
leadership team brought about by retirements and new colleagues joining the School.
The first job we have next week is to generate the basic structure of our
Operational Plan for the 2015/16 academic year. I am very confident we will get
there with some great ideas for how we address the challenges and changes
facing us. But between now and then there is just time for one more walk with
Cello in the woods.
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