In this article we share our experiences about the instructive and self-improving process we ended up with after our staff mobility to Austria in 2019: we became columnists for an Austrian online nursing publication. This report describes how it all started, what we have created during this process and then ending up with final thoughts about our achievements and outcomes.
Views from the river Danube. Pictures by A. Kokko and K. Leinonen 2019.
Background
Just before Covid 19 we decided to seize an opportunity offered by our employer and participated in Erasmus® staff mobility program. The IMC Krems University of Applied Sciences was agreed to be the destination due to our previous personal contact with this university. ICM Krems is located 80 km northwest of Vienna in the beautiful Krems city center (Krems an der Donau) with breathtaking views of the river Danube and green valleys, and several vineyards nearby.
The main goals for the staff mobility were to advance future collaboration possibilities, to learn from each other and to widen perspectives in nursing and teaching nursing. These were quite easily achieved by carefully planned nursing unit visits (Table 1) in Vienna and with the introduction of IMC Krems and familiarization with their nursing teaching and their methods. Austrian nursing students were really interested in Laurea learning by developing method and projects, as well as on-line based and blended learning.
| Visits | Ideas gained |
|---|
| Haus der Barmherzigkeit and Häuser zum Leben | High quality elderly care with versatile solutions |
| St. Anna Kinderspital | Concentration of child-friendly visual appearance of hospital interior, specialization in high quality treatment of children’s cancers |
| AKH Allgemeines Krankenhaus | ICU visit: high quality rehabilitation projects of intensive care patients |
| Wiener Privatklinik | ”One minute science” posters for nurses |
Table 1. Nursing unit visits and ideas gained.Invitation to the position of columnists for Phlege Professionell on-line publication came shortly after our visit to Krems. Editor in chief Markus Golla, who is also Head of the institute and Programme Director in IMC Krems, and who was hosting our visit to campus Krems, contacted us and invited us for a standing position of columnists with the target of 4 articles per year. We were really honored about this opportunity but felt writing an article a year would be more realistic alongside our main duties i.e. teaching. The titles of the articles was up to us to decide, it could be whatever we preferred concerning political, educational and bedside nursing issues in nursing in Finland. It was also agreed upon to write the articles in English. The final versions of the articles were in German, translated on behalf of the publisher.
Markus Golla, Prof. (FH), MScN, BScN is a Head of the institute nursing science & Programme Director General Nursing in IMC Krems University of Applied Sciences (Krems/Mistelbach/Horn). He is very enthusiastic, dynamic and modern when it comes to nursing and teaching nursing. He established the on-line Journal called Phlege Professionel and acted as an editor in chief through the 10-year-history of the journal. This period included more than 50 issues and over 6 million downloads. The final issue was published on 18 August 2024.
Published articles
Since the invitation, 3 articles have been published. In our first article (published in 2020) we described how nursing studies are organized on our campus as on-line based format with blended learning methods including flipped learning, workshops and learning by developing. The second article (published in 2022) was a short overview of the General nursing competence project (2018-2020) in Finland and included some examples of how the tests developed in this project were implemented on our campus. The third article (published in 2023) was about work engagement and its effect on nurses’ well-being. The concept of work engagement in nursing was defined and nursing students were asked with contemplating the future method to describe factors of nurses´ well-being in a happy working environment in nursing. We wrote these articles in English, and they were checked by Laurea`s English lecturers before forwarding them to Austria. All articles were translated into the German language by the Austrian publisher.
Conclusion
We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Erasmus® staff mobility program and, as a result, to have the opportunity to write articles for an international publication. We have learnt so much from each other and about co-operation when producing articles together in English. It has surely been also a process of self-development. All articles were written from nursing lecturers` point of view and acknowledged Laurea UAS and the development of our nursing curriculum. Our wonderful visit to IMC Krems and carefully planned other visits to several nursing units in Vienna extended our perspective on nursing and nursing culture in a different country. This experience has enriched our professional perspectives and fostered valuable connections that we hope to continue. You never know where you could end up when doing staff mobility.
Special thanks to Mr. Markus Kolla for his cooperation in all phases of the partnership.
References
- All published issues, see Magazine|Markus Golla
- Article number 1: Kokko, A. & Leinonen, K. 2020 Virtual Online studieren, um Krankenpfleger*in zu werdenpages. Phlege Professionell, 30/2020, 5-7. Referred 18.2.2025. ausgabe-pp20.pdf
- Article number 2: Kokko, A. & Leinonen, K. 2022. Sicherstellung einer qualitativ hochwertigen Pflege durch Testen der Kompetenzen von Pflegeschülern pages. Phlege Professionell, 47/2022, 13-15. Referred 18.2.2025 ausgabe-pp27.pdf
- Article number 3: Kokko, A. & Leinonen, K. 2023. Arbeitsengagement steigert das Wohlbefinden der Pflegekräfte. Phlege Professionell, 52/2023, 23-27. Referred 18.2.2025 ausgabe-pp30.pdf
