Professor 'nurses' new team in China

Li

ong Li, assistant professor of nursing, is helping lead a Chinese-American team of researchers on a nursing project unprecedented in China.

With Li's guidance, Chinese nurses will study--through interviews with families and patients--how families provide care to elderly patients hospitalized with cancer.

The collaboration has its roots in a year-long visit Li made to the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Ore., in 1985, after working seven years as a staff nurse at a Beijing Hospital.

"My first year in the United States was an eye-opening experience," says Li. "I saw that nursing here is something quite different than in China; I realized that nurses can come up with ways on their own to improve the care of patients. In China, we call the nurses the 'doctors' legs'--the doctors tell the nurses what to do. Here in the United States, nursing is much more professional. It's not only being the 'doctor's legs'; nurses here are well trained in critical-thinking skills to recognize and meet the patients' needs."

The experience convinced her to remain in the United States and pursue a research opportunity unknown to nurses in China, earning her bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree in Oregon before joining the Rochester faculty three years ago. In the United States her research has focused on care of the elderly in hospitals, a topic she experienced personally while caring for her father-in-law who was hospitalized in China.

During her recent return to Beijing, Li led nursing instruction focused on teaching Chinese nurses skills needed for interviewing, data collection, and analysis. Li's research suggests families report substantial benefits to patients when nurses and families work together--hospital stays are shorter, patients are less confused by the unfamiliar environment, and patients eat and drink more, maintaining strength and preventing dehydration.

"This research is grounded in this country, but now we want to help Chinese nurses and family caregivers who provide care to Chinese patients," says Li.

Li and Associate Professor Bernadette Melnyk are launching a pilot study, Creating Access for Relatives' Empowerment (CARE), to explore these findings. Li hopes to investigate issues surrounding care for elderly in U.S. hospitals and compare results to hospitals in China, where there are more than 130 million people over the age of 60.

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