Not just on Nursing Day: networked, diverse and international thinking in nursing education
Nursing is more than just care. It is attitude. Science. Responsibility. Participation.
"You must not fritter it away in 'fair purpose, erring act, inconstant will' but make your thoughts, your acts, all work to the same end. That is what we call character." - Florence Nightingale
One handover. Two worlds. One question
It's early in the morning. The early shift begins on a German nursing ward. Sofia - a qualified nurse from the Philippines, today her first regular shift - is standing in the handover room. Her colleague speaks. Sofia knows the nursing process. She knows the medication. But she doesn't know the tone. Not the cultural codes that determine how one speaks "here", asks questions, doubts - and still remains professional.
This question is increasingly part of everyday professional life in nursing care - especially in a society that has long since become a society of migration. And not just in Germany. It is a worldwide phenomenon. One of the reasons why diversity is one of the most pressing issues in nursing education today.
Showing attitude. Sharing knowledge. Thinking internationally
Students at the Faculty of Healthcare at Ostfalia do just that. They don't do research for the drawer - they bring their knowledge, their scientific sensitivity and their attitude to the international stage. Their contributions arise from everyday life in a diverse, pressurised healthcare sector - and they provide answers that need to be heard.
This year, students and lecturers from the faculty will be represented at two important conferences: in the Month of Nursing at the European Congress for Transcultural Care in Health Professions Education in Szczecin/Stettin (Poland) and in autumn at the Learning Worlds Congress - not as listeners but as active contributors to the scientific discourse. This is no coincidence. It is the result of a nursing education programme that takes students seriously as academic personalities from the outset - and creates spaces for them in which their work is heard.
Ostfalia contributions for the European Congress of Health Professions 2026 in Szczecin:
- Evidence-based interventions for the integration of internationally trained nurses into the German healthcare system (Adrian Kuhnke)
- Transition to practice & staff retention following nursing training and degree programmes - a systematic qualitative review (Christina Nikwonkam, Prof. Dr. Ludger Batzdorfer)
- An exploratory study of the need for diversity-sensitive care in general nursing education (Paula Weigand)
- International nursing students - opportunities and challenges in nursing education (Lisa Wegehaupt, Prof. Dr Ilka Benner)
- AI Meets Diversity: New Perspectives for Nursing Education (Patricia Schöner, Carolin Junker, Prof. Dr Maria A. Marchwacka)
- Caring for Ageing Turkish Guest Workers: Implications for Nursing Education (Melike Öztürk, Prof. Dr Bianca Steiner)
- Diversity in Nursing Education and Practice: The Case of Germany (Prof. Dr Günter Meyer, Prof. Dr Maria A. Marchwacka)
Each contribution is an expression of scientific sensitivity for topics that shape nursing education - nationally and internationally - today and tomorrow in the sense of Madeleine Leininger: "Transcultural nursing focuses on comparative cultural care values, beliefs, and practices with the goal to help people face illness or death in culturally meaningful ways." ("Transcultural nursing focuses on cultural values, beliefs and practices - with the goal to help people face illness and death in ways that are culturally meaningful to them.")
This includes topics such as diversity in nursing training and practice, transcultural nursing with concrete consequences for curricula and practice, evidence-based intervention measures for structural challenges in the German healthcare system, the transition from training to practice, questions of the experience of discrimination and its impact on learning processes through to the forward-looking interplay of artificial intelligence and diversity sensitivity in nursing education.
Nursing education of the future is not created in the lecture theatre alone
Participation in international congresses is exemplary of the Faculty's strategic self-image: Internationalisation is not an optional extra, but a core task of future-oriented nursing education. Bachelor's and Master's theses, doctoral projects and co-operative research projects are made visible here on the international stage - and fed into the scientific discourse.
Accompanied by those who exemplify science
Behind this work are teaching staff who are more than just lecturers. Prof. Dr. Ludger Batzdorfer (representative of the Study Commission), Prof. Dr Ilka Benner (Dean of Studies), Prof. Dr Bianca Steiner (Head of the Vocational Education and Management in Nursing degree programme) and Prof. Dr Günter Meyer (Dean of the Faculty of Healthcare and co-designer of the Psychiatric Nursing section of the DGP) support, challenge and encourage - not in the limelight, but precisely where good teaching has its strongest impact: in the background, with full force. Prof. Dr Maria A. Marchwacka, spokesperson for the Education Section of the German Society for Nursing Science, combines research and international networking in a special way: the EU project (MultiCultiMed) on transculturality in training for the healthcare professions, which she is leading as a consortium member in Germany, is presenting its results (external link, opens in a new window) during Nursing Month - another example of how the faculty consistently integrates European perspectives into teaching and research.
Back to the carer Sofia
She does ask the question. Quietly, but clearly. Her colleague pauses. Explains. Repeatedly. And suddenly there is something that is more than just a handover: an encounter. That is exactly the goal. Not adaptation. Not assimilation. But rather a nursing practice that recognises diversity as a strength - and a nursing education that lays the foundations for this.
What our students present on national and international stages are not term papers. They are answers to real questions - developed with scientific diligence, curiosity and attitude. That deserves recognition. And it deserves to be heard, and as Florence Nightingale aptly put it: "Don't waste your life in half-hearted intentions, flawed actions and fickle will - but let your thoughts and actions work towards a common goal. That's what we call character."
