December Down Under

By Kelly Brooks-Staub

After administering fall’s final exams, four Hopkins Nursing faculty packed their bags to continue their dedication to nursing research, education, and practice halfway around the world. Dan Sheridan, PhD, RN, FAAN; Betty Jordan, DNSc, MSN, RNC; Ibby Tanner, PhD, RN; and Joyce Williams, DNP, MFSA, RN found new colleagues and friends among the faculty and students at Flinders University School of Nursing and Midwifery in Adelaide, Australia, sharing their professional expertise and initiating a new global collab-oration for Johns Hopkins.

The trip began with a three-day flurry of presentations-at the university’s Fifth Annual Research Summit Program and three mini-conferences on women’s health, forensic nursing, and aging-and continued as each faculty member found Australian counterparts in her or his area of expertise.

The collaboration continues at the end of March, when Flinders Dean Paul Arbon, PhD, RN meets with Dean Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN at Hopkins to discuss models of DNP education, as Flinders is working toward being one of the first universities in Australia to offer this degree. In the future, the Hopkins team will work with Flinders faculty to strategize for collaborative pilot research and scholarship as well as improvements in clinical evidence-based practice. And next year, Hopkins plans to send two nursing students to the Berri region of southern Australia for a six-week practicum in a rural hospital.

“It’s amazing how much our faculty-and Flinders’ faculty-learned in the short time we were there,” says Sheridan. “And I know the future is full of opportunity.”