UCC Nursing & Midwifery Scholarly Impact Report 2022

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CATHERINE MCAULEY SCHOOL OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY, UCC

FOREWORD

Nurses and midwives are the largest professional healthcare workforce group; thus, maximizing their contribution to health is essential to achieve health coverage for a diverse and aging global population. Often as first-line carers, nurses and midwives play an essential role in increasing patient access to safe compassionate care, whilst improving the lives of vulnerable communities through education, research, and support. Over time nurses and midwives have developed new roles and assumed greater responsibilities, with the emergence of advanced practice roles. Schools of Nursing and Midwifery play an important role in the education and support of nurses and midwives, and in the development of the nursing and midwifery education, research, and practice. We are very proud of the fact that UCC’s School of Nursing and Midwifery has achieved 49 th (2021), 41 st (2022) and 33 rd (2023) place in the QS World Ranking in the subject area of Nursing. According to the QS rankings, UCC’s School of Nursing and Midwifery is ranked as the top School of Nursing in Ireland (2023) and is the top ranked subject in UCC. The “QS World University Rankings by Subject” considers employer reputation, academic reputation, and research impact to rate institutions globally. The research impact metric positively reflects intensive activity within six internationally connected research clusters which produce a consistent scholarly output as demonstrated

in this report. Research within UCC’s School of Nursing andMidwifery improves lives by impacting positively on health service and patient level outcomes. Similarly educational programmes within the school are supporting learning and teaching for health care professionals of the future. Nurses and midwives graduating in this decade will undoubtedly witness substantive disruption and change. This will take the form of evolutions in digital technology, changing models of care and potentially an increasing divide between those who have and those who do not have access to universal health and social care. However, nurses and midwives can be disruptors, seizing the future and shaping a hopeful narrative for the 21 st Century which recognises our fundamental interdependence, where humanity will feel more compassionate and connected, being more human, not less. Without immediate action, the professions of nursing and midwifery stand to miss a remarkable opportunity to generate new roles, knowledge, and relationships within future health systems and societies saturated by digital technologies. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals reflect a world vision which shifts citizenship from a local community to a global citizenship perspective. This is difficult for us to comprehend and difficult for nurses and midwifes to envision. If we take the perspective of distributed leadership- we all have the potential to be change makers though the compassionate provision of nursing and midwifery care, through

education, through community contributions and most importantly through research, innovation, and leadership. On April 1 st , I leave the role of UCC’s Head of School of Nursing and Midwifery and pass the baton to Professor Patricia Leahy Warren. I want to take this opportunity to wish Professor Leahy-Warren all the best in the role and thank the staff, students, clinical partners and wider UCC and health care communities for their support over the last five years. I would like to depart by sharing five reflections on what I feel is important as a Nurse leader. Firstly, and most importantly is to take a person- centred focus understanding that each person brings with them a wealth of experience and potential; each day we arrive to work we bring that experience and potential, but this is coupled with our livesoutsideof our joband thechallengesof the job. Our role as a leader is to try and balance these perspectives, to assist the person to understand their potential and provide the environment and practical support that assists them to reach their potential. Organisationally it is always important to invest in people. Appreciate the routine work that staff do on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. Celebrate on an equal basis the huge efforts that staff make and the successes. Secondly, we need to give ourselves permission to try new things (switch things up, innovate). Sometimes we try and fail, the important thing is

Professor Josephine Hegarty, Head of School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, Ireland