A senior UK nurse leader and academic has been elected to help lead a body representing nurses across the globe.
Professor Emily McWhirter, a registered nurse and associate director of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Leadership Academy, was today appointed to the board of directors of the International Council of Nurses (ICN).
“We’re in a world which is changing week by week”
Emily McWhirter
She will represent the West and Central Europe region on the board, which acts as the ICN’s governing body, for a four-year tenure.
Speaking to Nursing Times following her election, Professor McWhirter said she hoped to rise to the challenge, and outlined what issues in particular she wanted to help tackle.
“We’re in a world which is changing week by week,” said Professor McWhirter.
“I suspect what I think we need to do now might be different to what we’ll need to do in the course of the next four years.”
Professor McWhirter, an adult nurse by background, has worked across various areas of healthcare in her 35-year nursing career including in emergency departments in Brighton and the Kent, Surrey and Sussex air ambulance.
In 2017, she became executive director of nursing and infection control at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability in London.
She has a PhD in nursing leadership, a qualification in healthcare management and holds a degree in midwifery, though is not currently a registered midwife.
The senior nurse said her academic work on healthcare management fostered a “passion” to “strengthen [the] middle level of nurses”.
Professor McWhirter, from 2020 until 2024, worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) as a senior consultant, supporting the organisation’s chief nurse following the publication of the first State of the World’s Nursing.
This experience, she said, was what introduced her to global nursing and led to her involvement in the ICN.
As a result, she became interested in increasing the representation of the profession on an international scale.
“There are not enough nurses in the WHO,” she said.
“We really need to strengthen senior leadership there and across the world.”
In 2024, she was appointed as associate director for the RCN Leadership Academy, which is part of the college’s Institute of Nursing Excellence, a role she remains in.
Professor McWhirter said the recent State of the World’s Nursing report showed that there were a lot of nurses around the world, but that they were “not where they need to be”.
The report, published last month, highlighted shortages in lower-income countries and the importance of ethical international recruitment practices.
Professor McWhirter continued: “There are a lot of nurse struggling all over the world because of that. We’ve got to absolutely nail that.”
She further highlighted the issues of artificial intelligence (AI) in nursing practice and the welfare of nurses.
“It’s a really, really tough job now, and you’ve got to make it the best job in the world, otherwise people will find other [jobs], and I think that would be tragic,” she said.
“I’ve had some tough jobs and moments where you just think, ‘You know what, this is too hard’, and then somehow you get inspired by somebody… [nurses] need to have that.”
