Professor Natalja Istomina together with this year's Queen Silvia Nursing Award recipient, Jurgita Stankūnienė / Personal archive
In September of this year, Prof. Dr. Natalja Istomina, Head of the Nursing Department at the Institute of Health Sciences, Vilnius University Faculty of Medicine, attended the Queen Silvia Nursing Awards ceremony and a conference focused on the practical application of nursing and dementia knowledge in Stockholm, Sweden, as an invited expert. This year, the Queen Silvia Nursing Award was presented to Jurgita Stankūnienė, Head of the Nursing Department at the Faculty of Health Care, Vilnius College.
The Queen Silvia Nursing Awards, an annual tradition, are organized in Lithuania by Swedish Care International’s local partners—the Addere Care nursing hospital, which applies a Swedish healthcare model for dementia patients in Lithuania. The foundation established by Queen Silvia aims to promote and support innovative nursing initiatives, including the use of generative artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies.
“Nurses are in short supply worldwide, and in some countries, this shortage is seen as doubling, posing a serious threat to both individual and public health. The central idea of the event was that nursing should be human-centered, focusing on the dignity, hopes, values, and overall well-being of the individual. A patient is not just a client or the object of a service; a patient is, above all, a person, regardless of their physical or mental health condition. Both in Lithuania and globally, the aim of healthcare professionals should be not only to make the patient healthy, recovered, or adapted to their new condition but also to ensure their happiness. Unfortunately, we often forget about happiness and focus solely on physical well-being,” reflected Prof. Dr. Natalja Istomina.
According to the professor, the Queen Silvia event encouraged a fresh reflection on the concept of happiness: what defines happiness for a patient, what brings satisfaction and fulfillment to nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals, and how the latest technologies can help enhance happiness for patients, their families, and healthcare workers.