Encountering people as individuals with respect, and striving to understand diversity have always been a part of who I am as a nurse, teacher, researcher and as a human being. Every person deserves to be encountered, heard, and understood as they are by a healthcare professional. Discrimination and lack of cultural competence are unfortunately common in healthcare, and I am dedicated to fighting against them through my work. Finland has a relatively short history of immigration, and its healthcare system has long been designed to meet the needs of a largely homogeneous population. There is a great need for research, development and education on cultural competence. I have been a researcher and educator in this field since 2013. Over the years I have trained a large number of current and future professionals across Finland and internationally.
In the recent years, the nursing shortage has worsened, as it has across Europe, leading to a rapid increase in the number of foreign-born colleagues and students. Their education, integration into Finland, and adaptation to the Finnish working environment urgently require research and development. I want to shift the conversation from individual integration to the collaborative learning and development of work communities. This is the only true path to equitable, language- and culture-aware practices in multicultural healthcare environments. I have worked as a pioneer in developing and researching functionally bilingual nursing education, which was a task assigned by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture to our team. I have promoted the educational model to other higher education institutions and supported its design and implementation, as well as, extensively trained and raised awareness. Foreign-born colleagues often face discrimination in the job market based on their language skills and professional competence. I have been committed to developing solutions to these challenges together with my team over a long period time.
Currently I work as Director of Research and Development Program and researcher in the Future-Proof Health and Wellbeing innovation hub at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. I have established a research program dedicated to transcultural nursing and cultural competence, as well as, more specifically to multicultural society and two-way integration; inclusion, wellbeing and employment of immigrants; linguistically aware multilingual communities; ethical and human rights issues in healthcare and language technology supporting working life and professional language learning. I have built a large ecosystem with different stakeholders around these themes and I coordinate Metropolia’s research, development and innovation (RDI) activities in this field.
I have been the country representative of Finland in ETNA for the past ten years, sharing information within my networks and inviting new colleagues to join us. I have also contributed to the content of the ETNA Bulletin, newsletter and blog, as well as participated in ETNA conferences and webinars over my years in ETNA. In collaboration with our ETNA colleagues, we have engaged in joint publications and project initiatives in the field of transcultural nursing. ETNA represents a safe and empowering professional community for me, and I am fully committed to advancing its principles in all aspects of my work.
