Sonja Dawson and Mercy Ships

Nursing at sea now a PhD

Thursday, August 5, 2021
Brenton Stacey
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Brenton Stacey

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Brenton is Avondale University’s Public Relations and Philanthropy Officer. He brings to the role experience as a communicator in publishing, media relations, public relations, radio and television, mostly within the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific and its entities.

Eilish Ryan-Tangala
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Eilish Ryan-Tangala

Eilish is Student Life Coordinator in Student Life Services at Avondale University.

Lecturer’s study will help others offer humanitarian care

A study stint onboard a floating hospital has helped an Avondale lecturer develop a model for delivering humanitarian nursing care in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr Sonja Dawson’s professional practice model is one of the key findings of her PhD, conferred yesterday by the University of Technology Sydney. It pulls together the concepts of holistic care, hope, empowerment, agape love, environment and development to form what Sonja calls a “nursing philosophy scaffold.” Adapting this scaffold will help those “intending to offer humanitarian nursing care in the previously undefined space between acute relief and longer-term development projects.”

A six-month study of nurses who volunteered with global charity Mercy Ships helped Sonja develop the model. This is significant: previously published findings about this type of service are based only on anecdotal evidence.

Sonja conducted semi-structured interviews with 50 nurses on the Africa Mercy. She also filed field notes over a five-month period that began on the ship’s arrival in the west African country of Benin. Describing participants as robust advocates for the vulnerable, Sonja says they “held the firm resolve that the underserved patient deprived of a reasonable quality of life deserved more than they had previously been given the opportunity for.”

Sonja is a Mercy Ships veteran. Her first voyage in 1994 was to be a brief adventure—she signed for only three months but served for 12 years. The destination of that first voyage: Africa. Before joining Mercy Ships, Sonja had not visited the continent or any low- or middle-income country. The pain and suffering she saw “came as a shock, but in the midst of that I knew I could do something that would make a difference.”

Sonja served as a ward nurse on the Anastasis but within days assumed responsibility for the after-hours nursing staff. Within six months, she headed the ward. Two years later, she became nursing supervisor, responsible for overseeing up to 90 volunteers within the various medical service areas. When completing her Master of Nursing onboard became too difficult, Sonja took a 12-month break. After graduating, she returned to establish mentoring programs for local nurses.

Her work as a lecturer in the School of Nursing and Health at Avondale helped smooth the transition from ship to shore in a high-income country. “We have a privileged position as nurses in Australia, and it’s my aim to increase awareness of the needs of our colleagues from low-to-middle-income countries and inspire others to serve.”

Managing Director of Mercy Ships Australia Alan Burrell says Sonja “has a deep passion for the work of Mercy Ships. . . . We know [this research] will help prepare those who wish to volunteer in the future by giving them insight into nursing with Mercy Ships, in all its contexts.”

Mercy Ships has been bringing hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor since 1978. It provides free services primarily because the crew on each ship are volunteers who pay their own board and travel expenses. “I respect and honour the work Mercy Ships does in bringing hope and healing, restoring dignity and sharing the love of Christ in most practical ways,” says Sonja.


Photograph
Nursing lecturer Sonja Dawson with husband Dave onboard the Africa Mercy.

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