Tributes have been paid to a decorated nurse academic who has retired from her role in developing the nursing profession on a global scale.
The International Council of Nursing (ICN) this week announced the retirement of Dr Kristine Qureshi, lead trainer for the organisation’s Leadership for Change programme.
“ICN is enormously grateful for her vision and dedication, which has helped to build the skills and confidence of so many nursing leaders worldwide”
José Luis Cobos Serrano
Working across dozens of countries around the world, Leadership for Change supports nurses and health systems to improve practice, enact change within organisation and develop nursing leadership skills.
Dr Qureshi, the ICN said, oversaw the training of more than 1,500 nurses across four continents during her time in post.
An author of dozens of healthcare publications, Dr Qureshi – who attained her PhD in nursing from Columbia University – also served as professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
She started her career as a staff nurse at a hospital in New York, where she grew up. There, she worked across critical care and the hospital’s emergency department.
Dr Qureshi went on to be a charge nurse, clinical nurse specialist and nurse director before entering the world of nursing academia.
Having specialised in research on public health hand disaster preparedness, Dr Qureshi aided in the training of staff ahead of Covid-19 hitting the US in earnest.
She later joined the ICN where, as well as her work on Leadership for Change, the nurse academic also contributed towards the creation of the 2020 and 2025 State of the World’s Nursing reports, published by the World Health Organization.
Dr Qureshi said working with ICN was “the pleasure of my career”, adding: “Change doesn’t happen overnight. It’s like planting a seed.
The Leadership for Change programme is about nurturing those seeds with time, care, and persistence.
“You won’t see a tree in two weeks, but if you keep watering and tending to it, growth will come, and when it does, it can transform everything around it.”
Dr José Luis Cobos Serrano, the ICN’s current president, paid tribute to Dr Qureshi as she retired from her role.
He said: “Dr Qureshi’s role has been central to Leadership for Change’s impact and ICN is enormously grateful for her vision and dedication, which has helped to build the skills and confidence of so many nursing leaders worldwide.
“Dr Qureshi has left a lasting legacy in each setting where Leadership for Change] has been delivered and her contributions have informed important global policy documents such as the WHO State of the World’s Nursing reports and strategic directions on nursing and midwifery, which highlight leadership development as a priority for the profession.”
