Lisbeth Hockey

Lisbeth Hochsinger was born on 17 October 1918 in Graz, Austria.[1] In 1936 she began studying medicine at the University of Graz where she completed three years of the course before being sent away from the threatening political situation in Hitler's Germany.[2][3] She was unaware that her family had some Jewish ancestry, but later both her parents were taken to concentration camps where they died.[4][5] With assistance from the Society of Friends, Hochsinger arrived in England in 1938 and went to Devon to stay with a brigadier and his wife.[1][4] She first worked as a governess for their children and learned sufficient English to start nursing training in London.[5]

In 1939 she was accepted to do her general nurse training at The London Hospital.[6] She left the London Hospital on account of a new rule that stopped non-British subjects from nursing people who could be prisoners of war.[4] She was allowed to train at Coppetts Wood Hospital in Muswell Hill and she qualified as a fever nurse in 1943.[4][7] She then went to the Peace Memorial Hospital in Watford, completing her general nursing training in 1945.[6] She changed her name to Hockey in 1949.[8] She went to the North Middlesex Hospital, Edmonton and studied for her Midwifery Part 1.[9] For the second part of her midwifery training she chose to go to Essex where she would spend time in the district.[4] In 1950 she gained a health visitor qualification from Battersea Polytechnic.[10]

In 1965, she began working at the Queen's Institute of District Nursing in London, first as a tutor and then as a research officer.[3] In 1970 she gained a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of London.[11]

In October 1971, Hockey was appointed the first director of the Nursing Research Unit in Edinburgh.[12] It was the first nursing research unit at a British University.[5] She completed a PhD in 1979, an uncommon achievement.[13] Her PhD was awarded by City University, London and although her thesis was not published, A Study of District Nursing: the development and progression of a long term research programme provided an early description of the responsibilities involved.[14]^: 3

Although retired, she remained active in the nursing world.[13] The last year of her life was spent in a nursing home.[15] She died in Edinburgh on 16 June 2004.[1]

She was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1979 Birthday Honours.[16][17]

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) made her a fellow in 1980.[3] She was made an honorary fellow by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) in 1982, the first nurse to be honoured this way.[18] It would be more than twenty years before another nurse was given this same honour.[19] She was proud of this honour, having always intended to care for the whole person.[3][4] In 1987 she was made an Honorary Member of the Austrian Nursing Association.[20]

In 2000 she received the Gold Medal of Honour from the Queen's Nursing Institute, only the fourth person to receive this honour.[21]

She was bestowed with honorary degrees from the University of Alberta in 1980,[22] University of Uppsala in 1985[23] and the Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh in 1995.[5]

• Feeling the Pulse (1966)[24]
• Care in the Balance (1968)[25]

• profile at the UK Centre for the History of Nursing
• Lisbeth Hockey at the Royal College of Nursing archive