Day 2 - Melbourne - smoke and inside stories..

We had our annual Nursing Ethics Editorial Board meeting this morning attended by Board members from Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Ireland and the UK. We also had input from colleagues in Canada, Hong Kong, Germany, Finland, UK and India who were unable to attend.

Much lively discussion regarding the current state and future direction of the journal. The journal is now in its 20th year and in good health with 218 submissions from 36 countries and 21,958 downloads in 2012.  Recent special online issues on moral distress and dignity in care are considered a wonderful resource for teachers, researchers and students,

A second special issue on care ethics is planned for 2013 with a special issue early in 2014 on the Melbourne conference theme, 'end of life ethics' (edited by Megan-Jane Johnstone) and an online issue on the theme of ethics and dementia. Today I will be inviting colleagues at the conference to submit to the end of life ethics special issue but you heard it here first :-)

We were treated to an aboriginal smoke ceremony with didgeridoo marked the opening of the afternoon conference session to cleanse and create positive energy....

Interesting keynotes re policy, politics, evidence and end of life, parallel sessions presented by colleagues from Brazil, New Zealand, and Europe and then the awarding of the annual nursing and human rights prizes to Tom Carter, Beth Hatch and Elizabeth Crock...always a humbling experience. These are three exemplary Australian nurses who have led the way in respecting the human rights of people with HIV/AIDS (see citations in the current issue of Nursing Ethics).

Then it was on to a pre-dinner meeting with one of the authors of a provocative editorial in JAN regarding the 'killer elite' in nursing. Interesting to learn the background to the piece....

More anon