During his visit to Penn Nursing earlier this month, Lancet editor-in-chief Dr. Richard Horton left us with a promise to write about the work we are doing here. A man of his word, he devoted his November 19th editor’s column to “Nursing, but not as you know it.” Dr. Horton called Penn Nursing: “. . . the country’s leading research-intensive nursing school that stands as an equal with its biomedical counterpart.” He lauded our LIFE (Living Independently For Elders) program, calling it proof of “the social value of academically led practice . . . Rarely will one witness such a successful juxtaposition of practice and research, care and inquiry.” These are extraordinary statements, particularly from the editor-in-chief of one of the world’s most esteemed medical journals.
Although nurses have historically been at the forefront of science and health, it is always particularly potent to see how the accomplishments of nurse scientists are viewed by our esteemed colleagues in medicine. What Dr. Horton saw in our programs are examples of how nursing makes a difference and how keen our faculty are to translate knowledge into care, action, and policy.
This week I was thrilled to have as a guest at Penn Nursing Dr. Richard Horton, editor of the internationally renowned medical journal The Lancet. He spent three days meeting with nursing and medical faculty, students, and University leadership. One of the main topics everywhere was how the healthcare professions can come together to respond justly and equitably to global health needs and, to achieve that, how they need to be educated together. On Wednesday Dr. Horton gave an inspiring presentation to a crowded auditorium here in Fagin Hall titled “A Bonfire of the Professions: Prospects for Global Health.”
The dean of Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and I jointly hosted the lecture, which is indicative of how nursing and medicine are connected in a deep partnership, opening up opportunities for advances in health that cross continents and span seas.
Dr. Horton speaks passionately about the need for a patient-centered “revolution” in healthcare. “We are living through a healthcare crisis in the world today,” he said this week. He urged the healthcare professions to take heed that child survival, maternal health, and the infectious diseases malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS are still rampant in the parts of the world that are the poorest and have the fewest healthcare resources. He emphasized: “The current status quo simply cannot continue.”
In it, we advocated that “all health professionals in all countries should be educated to mobilize knowledge and to engage in critical reasoning and ethical conduct so that they are competent to participate in patient- and population-centered health systems as members of locally responsive and globally connected teams.”
To reach this vision, Dr. Horton is once again turning to Penn Nursing and to the University. He has proposed that Penn join The Lancet in a commission that would lead to “transprofessionalism,” uniting nurses, midwives, community health workers, and doctors to address global needs and inequities in healthcare.
That is a fantastic approach to global health today. We look forward to partnering with The Lancet in realizing some of the pioneering recommendations proposed in “Health Professionals for a New Century.”
