The University of Calgary’s Faculty of Nursing and Mount Royal University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery are co-hosting public health nurses from across the globe to address some of the most pressing public and population health issues.
The seventh International Global Network of Public Health Nursing Conference (GNPHN) is taking place from July 28 to 30 at the MacEwan Hall Conference Centre on the UCalgary campus.
“MRU and U of C are the two biggest nursing programs in our city, and of course, we partner well with each other,” said Dr. Aliyah Dosani, a professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Mount Royal University and co-chair of the conference.
“We work together, we do research together. We’re colleagues.”
The conference itself has been an opportunity for public health nurses from around the world to troubleshoot various common issues, Dosani said, including immunizations and climate change.
“These are really pressing issues that we have a vital role to play in, that we can try and tackle together.”
The the conference invited nurses of all ages, according to Dosani.
Students to retired nurses were able to join and partake in seminars and other events throughout the conference.
Dr. Zahra Shajani, an associate professor (teaching) and associate dean (undergraduate programs) in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary, and co-chair of the conference, said that a main point of discussion and take away from early conference proceedings had been the tools, strategies between health care systems across the world.
Finding the differences and similarities between health care systems was also a priority, she said.
“How do we highlight the importance of global collaboration?”
“Because we intend to continue these dialogs, ‘what’s happening in Japan, what’s happening in Norway, what’s happening in the United Kingdom, what’s happening in Ireland, what’s happening in the lower income countries,’ we are all being impacted. We’re all seeing these similarities in some of the issues, birth to end of life.”
Shajani said that the conference has had keynote speakers ranging from Canadian chiefs of nursing to medical artificial intelligence experts, with the aim of discussing the history, current state and future of nursing.
