I was awarded my PhD at Lund University in 2013 after defending a thesis that explored the conditions for care staff in elder care with an emphasis on job satisfaction, stress and stress of conscience and the relationship to factors relevant to the content of care, such as person-centred care, care atmosphere and leadership.

In summary, the results of my doctoral thesis show that based on the views of care staff in nursing and care homes, job satisfaction is most strongly associated with the encounter between care staff and elderly patients and their relatives. This means working in an environment where care staff are provided with the conditions to get close to elderly patients and share their lifeworld and experiences, which they saw as a valuable source of satisfaction in their work and something closely associated with the philosophy of person-centred care, which is an approach that is now equated with quality care. However, these aspects are not adequately captured by the instruments we use to measure job satisfaction, which means that the validity of existing instruments can be called into question.

There is also a tendency in the literature – despite indications of a salutogenic environment – to evaluate what generates low job satisfaction rather than what actually provides job satisfaction. By shifting the focus and developing instruments that have the potential to capture positive aspects, we can develop and evaluate interventions that actually make a difference rather than just highlighting the problems.

I started at Kristianstad University as a senior lecturer in nursing in 2014. Since that time, I have taken assignments that extend beyond teaching and research, including assignments as a programme director (POA) for the nursing programme (2016–2021).

I have always strived to achieve quality in education, and during the years I served as a programme director, I have been privileged to take the lead in the development of a revised programme, using McCormack and McCance’s (2016) framework for person-centred nursing as a guiding principle. The opportunity to take a leadership role while working in collaboration with students, colleagues and representatives of the community on the local, regional and national level has been an invigorating professional experience, not least the work to create a nursing programme with relevance at the community and individual level – here and now but also for the care model of the future.