Letter from the editor

Having started my career in publishing, I moved into a nursing career and worked my way up through the role of senior staff nurse on tertiary neonatal units, to become a specialist neonatal flight transfer nurse. I have now returned to publishing to take on the role of editor of Infant Journal. In this role, I am able to draw upon my experiences working on the neonatal units of London and with the London Neonatal Transfer Service (NTS).

My neonatal career has so far spanned 17 years. Seven of those years were spent working on the neonatal intensive care unit at St George’s Hospital, before I moved to Evelina NICU at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital. I spent six years on that neonatal unit and on secondment with the neonatal neuroimaging department with King’s College London.

I have now found my home with London NTS. Since 2019 I have been working as part of a specialist, dedicated critical care team that transfers approximately 1,600 babies a year between the London network of neonatal units. As part of this team, I have been proud to work with Lia’s Wings, a fantastic charity responsible for repatriating babies and children by air, on fixed wing flights and in partnership with Capital Air Ambulance. I had never considered that I would end up flying babies internationally and domestically and it is truly the highlight of my neonatal career. The amount of work and planning that it takes to transfer one small baby is phenomenal. Multiple teams are involved, often in different countries and it is an honour to work as part of this team, seeing the difference they make to the lives of the families they repatriate.

Repatriating a patient with Capital Air Ambulance and Lia’s Wings.

Throughout my career, I have been humbled by the care and passion that individuals and neonatal units show to their patients. Whether that is the medical care and treatment that babies receive and the support of their families on the wards, or the continuous research that goes into improving their care.

What also stands out to me, both through my time on the neonatal units and as editor of Infant Journal, is the work that charities put into raising funds for equipment, for parents’ comfort and to improve the neonatal wards for everyone who walks through the doors. Many of these charities have been started by parents of NICU graduates, after they found themselves spending time on the units with their babies. I look forward to building relationships with charities and working with them to highlight their fundraising achievements.

Individuals find their own paths and passions in their careers. This is becoming ever more evident to me as I work with the authors who write for Infant Journal. As I immerse myself back in the world of publishing, I am inspired by the passion of the authors; of the research that they are carrying out and sharing with the neonatal community – the fact that alongside their work on the wards and in labs they find time to write and share their abstracts; to go to the effort of publishing their work. This is how the neonatal intensive care world continuously develops.

I thank all authors past and present, and welcome those who would like to write in the future. Because of your work and commitment to your patients and their families, improvements to care will continue to be made. I look forward to meeting many of you at conferences and working with you on your articles.

Lisa Leonard was editor of Infant Journal for 11 years and on behalf of everyone working on the publication, I would like to thank her for her dedication. The relationships she built with authors and charities; encouraging and supporting authors to publish their articles, has enabled our journal to develop as it has.