Carolina Nursing News

Asia cannot be defined as one entity.  It is comprised of hugely diverse cultures with many different languages spoken.  We can learn many things from Japan, China, Korea and Thailand, for example.  There are big differences between these countries.  Benton has noticed that Japanese and Korean colleagues have the ability to stop, think through an issue, have a reasoned discussion, make a dceision and then mobile for action.  There is first a lot of debate and discussion, and then there is movement to get something done.   Benton compares this with nursing in the U.S. and the U.K. where he observes that as a profession we are not aligned.  He says we must be able to mobilze nursing around a set of principles to bring influence to bear on the system.  A fluent Spanish-speaker, he has spent a lot of time in Central and Latin America, where he also says that debate is important to the change process.