Farah Demachkieh, Senior Nurse at SANAD Hospice Lebanon and a Global Palliative Nursing Network (GPNN) Champion. Here, she reflects on their recent GPNN Champions meeting with Heather Richardson, Director of Academic Learning and Action at St Christopher’s Hospice.
A few weeks ago 16 nurses met together virtually to think about advancing palliative nursing and the place of being a leader in that endeavour.
By definition the group that met are working to become “champions” – proponents for the value of nursing; ambassadors for our colleagues doing great work in palliative care and change agents in relation to the impact that palliative nursing can have for people dying or bereaved.
In specific terms, we are working together to champion the new Global Palliative Nursing Network that brings nurses together around the world to advance palliative nursing.
Stronger leaders
We wanted to be inspired to be stronger leaders- through the work of others on the call and nurses that have influenced us.
When we think personally about our ambitions to be the best nurse that we can be, these aspirations have often been most influenced by observing or studying the work of nursing colleagues – people whose impact on patient care is clear; individuals who can enthuse and inspire teams of people around them; leaders who bring energy and vision to an often tired and dispirited group; leaders who uphold nurses position, role, voices and demands.
Individually and together we have been shaped and motivated by nurse leaders throughout our careers and also by reading about the lives and work of nurse giants – Mary Seacole, Cicely Saunders, Florence Nightingale to name a few.
Recently, on Waterloo station in London, GPNN facilitator and Director of Academic Learning and Action at St Christopher’s, Heather Richardson read a poem by Professor Laura Serrant, a nurse who had come over to the UK in the Windrush Movement, entitled “You called and we came”. Her commitment to achieving a vision of “health for all” and the personal upheaval she endured to do so is both moving and inspiring. She is a nurse leader of gigantic proportions with real influence, and Heather is keen to be more like her.
Transformational leadership
Our time together as “champions” has been very helpful in this regard. When we met last month we explored the American model of transformational leadership – focused on actions and behaviours to create then help others achieve a shared vision. It encourages modelling, enabling and encouraging as well as challenging processes that are unhelpful.
We looked through its perspectives at some of the shared characteristics of nurses Cicely Saunders and Florence Nightingale, articulated by Marie Cooper and Heather Richardson some years ago. There is strong resonance – a visionary leader and protagonist for excellent care amongst others.
Then we talked together about areas for collective and personal growth to become stronger leaders – achieving change and impact at local, regional and global levels. Recalling that event, thoughts that seemed to resonate the most are:
- How many leaders already exist in our membership; yet individuals often don’t see themselves as such. We owe it to each other to notice and articulate others’ leadership qualities so that they can refine and leverage them to better achieve their goals
- How supportive the network is as people grapple with personal and professional reflections of frustration when they can’t achieve the leadership potential they have or could bring to the challenges they face
- How valuable models such as that of “transformational leadership” are. We hope fellow champions will reflect on where they want to hone their skills then seek out help from the network (mentoring, coaching, formal learning) to become even more effective
- How important it is to model to fellow nurses how they can transform the death course; as the life course, of patients and their families and give them a sacred opportunity to a dignified goodbye, a goodbye that patients would want to experience, a goodbye that caregivers would want to cherish and remember and a goodbye that nurses would want to feel proud of. We both frequently encounter nurses who do not understand the extent to which they can contribute to improving people’s end of life moments because they have never seen how it can be done differently; instead they are very focused on saving lives. It is our role as champions not only to talk but also to model what palliative nursing is about.
- How “encouraging the heart” as one element of the transformational leadership model lies at the heart of palliative nursing that is driven by compassion. This reinforces the leadership attributes that are inherent to palliative nursing, often echoed by the champion nurses.
- How challenging the nursing process and advocating for and adopting “a public health narrative” could serve as a crucial act to advance palliative care. Nurses are very, rightfully, attached to the patient-staff narrative; however, in palliative care communities play a fundamental role in end-of-life care and as such nurses have the opportunity to empower communities to reclaim their unique role in supporting dying patients and bereaved family members.
We believe that the champions group and the wider nursing network creates a safe space for all the champions “to be” and to reflect on different attributes that they can hone, including leadership ones thereby helping enhance palliative nursing and fellow nurses.
Thank you all for your contribution.
Farah Demachkieh
