One week in Philadelphia full of learning, sharing, connecting, and celebrating!

by Jorun E. Thoma, MSc; Medical Center – University of Freiburg, Germany

​Since we started our journey together in the Magnet4Europe study program two years ago, our conversation was led by an attitude of learning, sharing, and connecting. Instead of meeting virtually we finally met in person. Everyone was very excited. In preparation for this, Christie DiMichele DNP and I exchanged ideas and questions for our visit. 

​Our visit at our twinning-partner’s organization
We started the day at the Jefferson College of Nursing with meeting Dean Marie Ann Marino and colleagues, accompanied by our colleague Dr. Birgit Vogt from Hamburg and Dr. Claudia Maier from the TU Berlin. We visited the impressive skills lab and learned from Carol Okupniak about the ‘mixed reality’ learning of the nursing students. Through the virtual reality goggles, we could ‘experience’ different perspectives of a situation with aggressive behavior. 
At our meeting at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital with CNE for Jefferson Health, Dr. Kate Fitzpatrick, and CNO for Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Dr. Mary Beth Edger and colleagues, we shared information about the different training and study programs and healthcare systems in the USA and Germany.

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​For example, the first study programs for nursing started in Germany in the 1990’s. Many nurse managers nowadays in Germany have an academic degree in business administration or management in healthcare organization, but not specifically in nursing as requested for a Magnet® recognition. The vocational professional training contains 2,100 hours of theory and 2,500 hours apprenticeship. Nurses in their vocational training are employees at the healthcare organizations from day one.

​Further, we were impressed by how data can be presented and easily accessed which enables all nurses and colleagues to work to improve the patient care. In the afternoon, we were very happy to have the chance to visit various wards and talk to colleagues. We shared our experiences about different roles, tasks and equipment. We experienced transparency in sharing the data and learned from their communication tools. We, the extended twinning-team, are sure that this connection will outlast the limited time of the Magnet4Europe study program and we celebrate this.

​Learning Collaborative
On Wednesday morning the Magnet4Europe learning collaborative took place and the ‘power of Cork’ has continued. We learned about ‘Business Case for Magnet’, including the ingredients of the secret sauce, and ‘Professional Practice Models’. We discussed ‘Translating Magnet Recognition to Europe’ and learned from the best how to maximize response rates in the European Clinician Wellbeing Survey. The best poster was recognized.​

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​The conference
The conference started Thursday with 11,000 attendees; this was overwhelming, huge, and vivid.  In addition to the attitudes of learning, sharing, and connecting, definitely celebrating and acknowledging the achievements were in order. All those celebrating nurses is something that we German people can learn from. The pride of being a nurse, competency, knowledge and passion was palpable. The huge venue made us walk a lot, counting our steps, remarkable keynote speakers reminded us to take care of ourselves in order to be able to care for others. 

We were impressed nevertheless, and we experienced that even if healthcare systems or educational systems are different; we have a lot in common.


​Thanks to the Magnet4Europe study program we can learn, share, connect, and definitively celebrate this!

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