Thanks to the efforts of colleagues in the Faculty of Nursing at Kyoto Tachibana University, I visited 3 elder care services this last week. All were inspiring and each had aspects we can learn from. Kirakuen: Care is Culture Kirakuen is part of the Social Welfare Corporation which began in 1982 in response to concerns about poor care. The service is […]
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At 8.15am on the 6th August, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It exploded 600 metres in the air over Shima hospital, destroying everything below. The Atomic Bomb Dome (below) is the first thing you see when you step off the tram at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. It was 15o metres from Shima hospital. . Over 140,000 people were killed from […]
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This week has been eventful with a Royal wedding in England, yet another fatal school shooting in the USA, much media attention to the forthcoming abortion referendum in Ireland and news of the stepping down of the Chief Executive of the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council. Meanwhile, all is calm in Yamashina. Yamashina is a ward of Kyoto city where I am staying for the […]
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The 12th of May is International Nurses Day and marks the birthday of Florence Nightingale. This year it also marked the opening ceremony of the annual RCN Congress. For the first time, the Congress was in Belfast and the arrival of over 2000 nurses made the city even livelier than usual, As I settled into my seat […]
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A story I recall from my youth is that of a tourist who stopped her car in a rural part of Donegal to ask directions of a local man. The tourist asked: ‘How do I get from here to Buncrana?’ The local man replied: ‘Well, I wouldn’t start from here’. Sometimes in our practice, it […]
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This week I’ve had opportunities to learn more about Xiamen University, about the city and about a core Chinese virtue related to care: filial piety. Some questions will follow on that theme… I attended a fascinating class, given by Dr Emily Yu Zong, on ‘Racial Melancholia’. The class was part of a humanities course on ‘Happiness’ […]
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