I am a registered nurse, with specialization in surgical-intensive nursing, in my basic education. I am master in educational sciences (MEd), and PhD in health sciences (nursing science).  Since 1998, I  was a full professor in nursing science and 20 years (2002-2022) the Head of the Department of Nursing Science in the Faculty of Medicine. I also have many other scientific duties, both in my university, nationally and internationally.

In 2002-2022, I had a subsidiary position as Nurse Director in the Turku University Hospital, allowing close connections with the work-life and clinical practice of nurses, and other health care professionals. That kind of position is an excellent opportunity to combine the research and practice.

PhD-education has been important part of my work, and I have supervised more than 70 graduated PhDs in nursing science. In University of Turku, we have a PhD-program in nursing science (Doctoral Program in Nursing Science DPNurs), I am the faculty member of the DPNurs,  and I have collaborated in the Finnish national doctoral network in nursing science, including collaboration between all five universities in Finland responsible for PhD-education in nursing science.  Since many years, I have participated in the PhD-teaching of European Academy of Nursing Science EANS. We also have PhD summer schools in Baltic Sea Region Network in Personalized Health Care, which I am contributing.

I was a visiting professor (2016-2018) in the University of Dublin, Trinity College and have many international expertise duties. I am honorary doctor in the University of Klaipeda, Lithuania and President of Finland has given me honorary nomination of Terveydenhuoltoneuvos in 2024.

My research fields are concentrated in following topics, I have published more than 600 scientific publications, have international and multidisciplinary collaboration, have leading several interantional research programs and involved in many EU-funded consortiums:

• Value basis and ethics in health care and nursing. In this field, I have a special interest in clinical empirical ethics, including ethics of administration and health care organisations, as well as moral courage and ethical competence of professionals. One of the latest international collaboration in this area is the collaboration with American Nurses Association, for analysing the use and meaning of ANA ethical codes.

• Empowering patient education. In this field, I have special interest in clinical fields, like orthopedic nursing and care of cancer patients. I have developed and used in collaboration with the research team instruments and programmes for patient education, also in international collaboration. Currently, we are analysing large data about patients' right to know about their health and care as well as the leadership of patient education.

• Competence of nurses and nursing students. In this field, I have a special interest in the evaluation and measurement of competence, and I have been involved in the development of competence instruments in collaboration with other researchers. For example, The Good Nursing Care Scale with different clinical modifications, the Nurse Competence Scale (in collaboration with Riitta Meretoja), Competence in Intensive Nursing Care (in collaboration with Riitta-Liisa Lakanmaa), Anesthesia Nursing Competence (in collaboration with Yunsuk Jeon).

• Outcomes of nursing and health care education. In this field, I have special interest in evaluation of learning outcomes of nursing and health care education, as well as work of teachers. In this field, for example, I have collaborated with Mikko Saarikoski with the international Clinical Learning Environment-Scale CLES, with different forms of it. 

• Latest,  based on funding from the Academy of Finland, I have been a PI in an international research project in the competence of nurses (PROCOMPnurse), and we have published about the competence and factors connected at the early phase of nurses' career.  I also recently collaborated in the Erasmus+ program Nurse Leadership, for developing PhD and post doc education (PI Thora Halfsteindottir, University of Iceland/Utrecht) - aiming to continue in that field.

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I am also doing evaluations for different research funding organisations both nationally and internationally, as well evaluations of the research in universities and health care organisations.

I have been teaching both on masters and PhD-level in my university, and also internationally.  On masters level, teaching of philosophy of nursing and health care has been my expertise. On the PhD-level, my field has been philosophy of science, different ethical courses, as well as courses in nursing education and research methods. Internationally, I am teaching eg in the European Academy of Nursing Science summer school for PhD-students in Europe, my field is research integrity.

I have supervised more than 70 graduated PhDs and currently I have several  PhD-students under my supervision, mostly in collaboration with scientists from other disciplines.

I am a member of Advisory Board of the European Federation of Nurse Educators FINE.