The author expresses his opinion and hears back from those who disagree.
While visiting China, Watson politely fields a flood of comments from readers reacting to an article he wrote and keynotes a nursing conference in Luzhou, Sichuan Province.
HULL, United Kingdom—I’m not sure I was ever the most popular nursing professor in the UK, but my ratings certainly tumbled after my piece “Nurses don’t need bursaries—here are four reasons why” was published in The Conversation. Colleagues alerted me that I was being heartily criticized for my article, and the media office at the University of Hull fielded many enquires and issued a press statement. While I was sitting behind the great firewall of China, my article had more than 17,000 reads, a typhoon of protest on Twitter, and a series of comments—only one of support—on the publication’s webpage.
Once I had gained access to the internet and—via a virtual private network—to Twitter (otherwise blocked in China), I understood what the fuss was about. I made a point of responding to all the comments on the webpage and as many as I could on Twitter. Expressing gratitude for the comments, most of which I predicted, I tried to politely neutralize the anger directed at me. I cannot deny, however, that some of the more personal comments penetrated. I am now back home, and things seem to have calmed down.
China
My China visit was to Luzhou in Sichuan Province, where I gave a keynote at an annual nursing conference. In addition to my keynote, I also consulted with Master of Nursing students at Southwestern Medical University about writing manuscripts for publication.
I have often reported that the mighty Yangtze River divides Luzhou in half, and I have written about the caustically hot food they serve. I took in the Yangtze on a morning run but refused to take in any local food promised to be, as my hosts would say, “a bit spicy.” The local airport is closed while they build a new one—nobody knows why they didn’t keep the old one open until the new one was built—so I had the pleasure of a three-hour round-trip drive from Chongquing (pronounced chong-ching), where they have a magnificent new airport.
This was my second visit to the Far East this year and the first of what will probably be four visits to China. On the way back to the UK, I spent one night and one day in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong
I stopped in Hong Kong to chair a meeting at The Education University of Hong Kong. The university accommodated me in the Royal Park Hotel Shatin, where Mrs. Watson and I stayed the first time I came to Hong Kong in 2003.
I had dinner with Doris Yu, PhD, RN, of The Chinese University of Hong Kong in the evening. Yu was a doctoral student when I first met her in 2003, and now she is a well-established nursing academic and a recent addition to the editorial team at Journal of Advanced Nursing (now simply JAN).
The meeting at The Education University of Hong Kong was to review the Bachelor of Health Education program following the graduation of its first cohort. I met senior staff members, teaching staff members, students, and a local stakeholder. I also visited several on-campus facilities.
The institution only recently attained full university status. As a member of the Research Grants Committee (RGC) of the Hong Kong University Grants Council, I visited the former Hong Kong Institute of Education to assess its research activity and make a recommendation to the UGC about granting university status. It is nice to have played a small part in Hong Kong’s educational history. RNL
Roger Watson, PhD, RN, FRCP Edin, FRCN, FAAN, professor of nursing at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom and a frequent visitor to Australia and China, where he has visiting positions, is editor-in-chief of JAN and editor of Nursing Open. Click here to access Blogger-resident entries posted before 2017 in Watson’s former blog “Hanging smart.”
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