Branka Rimac

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Croatia is a crescent-shaped country situated at the crossroads between central Europe and the Mediterranean, along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. When Branka Rimac completed her nursing education in Croatia in 1980, Croatia was only an administration area of Yugoslavia, a federal socialist nation governed by a strong communist party.

Today, Branka is the president of the Croatian Nurses Association and Croatia is an independent republic that is no longer a part of Yugoslavia. Branka's personal story of her growth as a nursing leader took place against the backdrop of her beloved country's emergence as a new nation.

Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, but that declaration was followed by 5 years of war with Yugoslavia. Americans probably best recall the war as the “Bosnian Conflict”—the war of independence involving Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The conflict ended in 1995 with the United Nations supervising the end of the war.

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I met Branka in the early 1990s when I was the nursing coordinator for an international hospital partnership managed by the American International Health Alliance. I was a vice president at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, and our partnership involved three hospitals in Zagreb, the capital of the newly independent Croatia. Mirjana, one of the nurse leaders I worked with and admired, kept telling me, “You must meet Branka Rimac. She will be a great nursing leader for Croatia someday.” When I met Branka, I immediately understood Mirjana's prediction about Branka's future.

Allow me to introduce Branka Rimac, the first international member of American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) and a leader who holds an ambitious vision for her young country and the nurses who serve the population of Croatia. That population exalts in the newfound liberty of independence and mourns the 5 years of war to achieve it. Those years of war occurred as Croatia tried to form, care for, and ultimately rebuild itself.

Branka is a driven and focused nurse leader. I stand in awe of her determination to create a different future for nursing in Croatia. She sees all of the obstacles and names them easily; she just does not let these problems stop her. I do believe that in 4 years Croatian nurses will thank her for her amazing leadership and vision to reshape nursing in her country.

Branka, tell me how you became interested in leadership and working with your nursing colleagues.

I finished my initial nursing education at the Zagreb High School for Nursing in 1977 when I was 19 years old. I continued my education at the School for Health Study and graduated in 1980. I started work in the University Hospital Center Rebro's departments of rheumatology and rehabilitation as soon as I graduated. In 1982, I was appointed the department nurse, which is like a head nurse. I have been in that role ever since. I never had any formal leadership training, and I realized that I had to learn more to be the leader I knew that I could be.

I have worked on many projects to improve the status of nursing students at the Zagreb School for Nurses. I have also worked to help nurses in hospitals throughout Croatia. I have organized seminars, educational meetings, and courses for nurses. Some of these have been for nurses in towns, and some have been national meetings. I think it is so important for nurses to continue to educate themselves. We have so much to learn. For example, I worked with some of my colleagues to prepare educational brochures on the dangers of AIDS that we called “Stop AIDS.” Someone had to do this, and so we did.

You have been very active in your professional association. Tell us about that work.

I represent the nurses of my hospital in the CNA. I have prepared many monthly education meetings to help the nurses. I also worked with friends and other nurses to coordinate the efforts of nurses involved in many different projects in Zagreb. You must remember that our association, like our country, is new. We founded this association in 1992. When Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 we had to create everything—a new government, a new ministry of health; everything had to be started. In 1990 we had communist leaders. In 1991, we became a democratic republic. Then the war began, so it has been very difficult to do our work.

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I know that you were very concerned about the welfare of your colleagues during the war. You did something very special for them.

Yes, the nurses worked so hard during the war. I was worried that they were not taking care of their own health, and they had no time to relax. I arranged a trip for them. I talked a local travel agency into giving us a bus for a small cost, and we took a busload of our nurses to Varadzin for a weekend relaxation trip. It was a small thing, but it helped them get away from the stress of the work and forget the war for a time. It was so successful we did it again.

You have been involved with the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) since 1998. What opportunities did that present for you?

In 1998 I was invited to attend a meeting organized by AIHA titled, “Nursing in the 21st Century.” The attendees were nurses from the national nursing associations of countries in central and eastern Europe and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. We met in Riga, Latvia, to learn about what we could do as associations to improve nursing in our countries. We heard from nurses in the United States and from the International Council of Nurses (ICN).

It was a very important meeting for me. I was able to meet many association leaders from all over central and eastern Europe. They inspired me to voice my personal dream of someday being the president of the CNA. I began to create my strategy of what I could bring to the nurses of Croatia if I could lead them.

I was further honored to be selected to attend the first class of the AIHA's International Nursing Leadership Institute (INLI). Our first meeting was in London in 1999 in conjunction with the ICN Congress. The second meeting of the INLI was in the United States, and I was able to travel to Louisville, Kentucky. I learned more about leadership, management, communication, and project development. These were all new subjects for me. It was also during this trip that I was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau. The final meeting of the INLI was in 2000 in St. Petersburg, Russia. I see myself as the first generation of Croatian nurses offered this special kind of knowledge concerning leadership in nursing.

What do you want to do with this knowledge?

My greatest wish is to share my knowledge and experience with my colleagues. I started doing this by participating in the Second AIHA International Congress for Nurses in Zagreb. I led a workshop about the positive changes we can make in nursing to create a better future.

I see my role as president of the CNA as an opportunity to accomplish this wish. I have been elected to be president for 4 years. In this position, I am the leader of 1,200 Croatian nurses. One of my major messages to my fellow nurses is my desire to lead the organization in a new and modern way, opening new horizons for learning and evolving into a modern and cooperative nursing association. We have structural models of the association in 145 health institutions all over Croatia, including primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of health protection. The professional work of these branches is conducted by organizing professional seminars, educational programs, and professional lectures for all nurses. Twenty-one professional societies operate under the CNA to meet the needs of nurses in specialty areas like orthopedics, dialysis, and cancer. These specialty societies also organize professional meetings and courses.

It is very important to improve the education of nurses in Croatia. We have a great need for reform of our educational system. I want to see nurses achieve a baccalaureate like nurses have in the United States. I hope that our American colleagues can help us with this.

You were very excited when you won the election and became president. How did you start your term?

I wanted the nurses to know that I care about what they want. I am still the department nurse at Rebro Hospital, so I do my association work after I finish my hospital work. I wanted to meet the nurses of my association, so I took my holiday leave and drove all over Croatia to visit each hospital. I met with the nurses to ask them what they wanted from me as their president and what they wanted from the association. It took me a long time to travel to all of the hospitals, but I am glad that I did it. They know me now, and I know them. Then I met with my colleagues in Zagreb who are also members of the association, and we created our strategic plan. The association had never had a strategic plan.

What is the plan?

Well, first, we needed to have an office and a place for nurses to meet. It took some time, but now we finally have an office in Zagreb, a headquarters for the CNA. We then outlined what we want our strategic guidelines to be for 2005 through 2008. First, we want to establish professional services for the CNA so we can offer nurses a center where they can meet. We want the place to also have a library; we have no library at this time. We want to be a center for nursing research and statistics and data processing.

Second, we want to establish international cooperation with the ICN and Croatian regulatory bodies. We want to have a positive impact on the social and economic aspects of our society's development by cooperating with other Croatian social organizations such as educational institutions. But most important, we want to develop professional nursing practice with new standards so that we can improve nursing.

We have much work to do, and it is very difficult for us. We all work very hard, and I worry that I will run out of energy. But then I see what we can do, and I know that I am doing the right thing.

What are some of the initiatives you have planned?

I am a member of AONE. I want to have nurses in Croatia learn about leadership like I have been able to. We will have a collaboration with AONE this May that is very exciting. The CNA and AONE will be hosting an International Leadership Congress in Opatija that will be 2 days of leadership development with faculty from AONE. This is important content, and it will begin the education that we need.

Also, I want to continue to learn more about what nurses need. We struggle because nurses are so poorly paid in Croatia. Last year the government reduced the wages for all nurses in management positions. This was very demoralizing. Wages for nurses are so low that many can make more money working in other jobs such as in clothing boutiques. Nurses stay in their jobs because they love their work with patients. They do not stay because they are well paid. This is very challenging when they have families to support.

I know that I can make a difference, and so I must continue to find ways to make it better for us. There is so much that we can do.