In October, Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN) Director Lynne McVey, accompanied by Prof. YiQing Lü, spent several days as guests of Nanjing Medical University (NMU) in China, exploring future collaborations to benefit both schools of nursing. In particular, the discussions focused on nursing and other research exchanges, with an eye towards recruiting doctoral students to the ISoN.
As an invited speaker at the NMU’s Second Annual Nursing Forum, Prof. McVey spoke about the imperative for nurses around the globe to take their place as CEOs and decision-makers in the healthcare system.
Tracing her own trajectory from frontline nurse to CEO to Director and Associate Dean at McGill University as an example, she outlined the most common backgrounds of CEOs in healthcare in North America as being venture capital/private equity (42%), finance and accounting (40%) and launched a call, supported by the WHO Chief Nursing Officer, for more CEOs in healthcare to have clinical backgrounds, highlighting the contribution nurses as CEOs could make to this vision.
Photo credits: Nanjing Medical University and YiQing Lü.
