In spite of, or perhaps because of, Lisbeth’s experience of having her life disrupted by events beyond her control, she emerged as a hugely influential change-maker of her time. Her studies in medicine were cut short by the Second World War, and she arrived in London as a refugee from Austria. Soon after, she began training as a nurse but this too was halted, by a change in the law preventing non-British subjects nursing prisoners of war. Undeterred, Lisbeth persisted and in the end succeeded in qualifying as a general nurse, district nurse, midwife and health visitor.
Lisbeth questioned everything in order to better understand, and this inspired her to complete a PhD and advocate for nursing to become a research-based profession. As the director of the first Nursing Research Unit in the UK, at the University of Edinburgh, Lisbeth argued for a programmatic approach to nursing research. She wanted to build international capacity for community nursing research, and to ensure small projects contributed to a wider understanding in ways that could really shape nursing practice.
She was a woman of influence and action, putting evidence to work for the benefit of society. A nurse committed to questioning and questing, an example for us all.
