Joanne McPeake, a Staff Nurse in critical care in Glasgow and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, has recently returned from a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship (www.wcmt.org.uk).  Joanne visited the United States of America, where she spent four weeks visiting various Intensive Care Units. 

The purpose of the Fellowship was to explore the use of various techniques to improve short and long term outcomes for patients in the UK recovering from a period of critical illness.  During her time in the United States Joanne had the opportunity to visit a wide range of ICU’s and staff from Houston, Salt Lake City, Nashville and Boston.  Major topic areas explored  included: the role of the social worker in critical care; the role of early mobilisation in the critical care setting; approaches to sedation and delirium management; the role of cognition training in critically ill patients and the use of family and patient councils within the acute care setting. 

The whole experience was invaluable as Joanne reports ‘I have experienced so much in my time in America and I will integrate these experiences to help deliver improved care to critically ill patients.  I was made to feel so welcome by everyone I visited.  It was a real privilege’.  

Joanne has made invaluable contacts during her fellowship and plans to develop international, multi-professional collaborations in the near future.  Further, she intends to disseminate her findings both locally and nationally and to influence the future development of ICU service provision within Greater Glasgow and Scotland. 

First published: 26 October 2011

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