Elsie Stephenson Memorial Lectures

Described in the Journal of Advanced Nursing as “Britain’s nursing messiah of the 20th century”, Elsie Stephenson became the University's first Director of the Nursing Studies Unit in 1956. The Elsie Stephenson Memorial Lectures run biennially and celebrate Elsie's work and the history of our Nursing Studies department. Details of all lectures from 2012 onwards can be found below.

Elsie Stephenson was appointed by the University of Edinburgh in 1956 as Director of its newly-established nursing studies unit. Over its first decade, until her premature death in 1967, she led its expansion into a fully-fledged university department and its introduction of the UK’s first integrated programme leading to a degree and nursing registration.

Alison Tierney started on that programme in 1966 and so, through her first year as an undergraduate nursing student, Elsie Stephenson was head of the department. Just a year, but long enough to leave a deep and lasting impression on Alison, in particular the idea that the nursing profession must be imaginative and forward-looking as well as focusing on the here and now.

Alison develops this theme in her lecture, first by looking back at ways in which Elsie Stephenson and her colleagues in Nursing Studies were envisaging and shaping a better future for nurse education and nursing at the time. And then, looking forward, she argues that reimagining nursing now, but even more radically, is an urgent task for the profession in the face of the challenges for health services now and in the coming decades.

The lecture was originally delivered to a live audience at the University of Edinburgh on March 28th, chaired by Professor Aisha Holloway. The lecture was delivered a second time for the purposes of recording to a group of senior undergraduate nursing students on 17th October and introduced by Professor Pam Smith.

With reference to Elsie Stephenson’s legacy and with a specific focus on maternity services Professor Warwick discusses why it is necessary to put the patient/woman at the centre of their care and the challenges this poses for professionals. She draws on examples drawn from her own experience, that with high quality leadership it is possible to overcome such challenges and suggest what systemic changes might be necessary to ensure that what may be seen today as innovative practice becomes the norm.

As part of our celebrations of 60 years of Nursing Studies at Edinburgh, we held the biannual Elsie Stephenson memorial lecture on Thursday 3 November 2016. This event is held in the name of the first Director of Nursing Studies at Edinburgh. In this special year, we invited Professor Roger Watson, Professor of Nursing at the University of Hull and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Advanced Nursing to give this prestigious lecture.

This year's lecture was given by Claire Goodman, whose research has explored the contribution of nursing to the support of frail older people living at home. Her work examines how nurses influence what can and cannot be achieved. Claire Goodman is Professor of Health Care Research at the Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care, University of Hertfordshire. She is a graduate of Nursing Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Our 2012 Memorial Lecture was given by Fiona Ross, whose lecture examined how Elsie Stephenson’s legacy has influenced nurse education over time. Fiona is an alumni of Nursing Studies at the University of Edinburgh and, having began her degree only a few years after Elsie Stephenson's untimely death, she reflects on the influence and changes across the field of nurse education from then until now.