https://doi.org/10.19043/ipdj.62.002It began two years ago, then

Arriving in Edinburgh the enthusiasm abounds.

The first day arrives – oozing anticipation.

Great to gather old friends, new friends;

Clans and clever creativity, having fun

Energy in the room, creating, innovating,

Creative ways transforming minds, creating impact.

The International Practice Development Collaborative (IPDC) is loose network of practice developers, academics and researchers who are committed to working together to develop healthcare practice. The IPDC believes that the aim of practice development is to work with people to develop person-centred cultures that are dignified, compassionate and safer for all. One of its four pillars of work is a biennial Enhancing Practice conference. Moving round the world, the IPDC members take it in turns to host the conference; in early September 2016 it was the turn of Queen Margaret University (QMU) in Edinburgh.

This article has been created collaboratively by a number of the people who attended this three-day conference. The IPDJ team invited participants to offer ‘the line of a poem’ that captured or reflected their experience and/or learning. These were then collected and shared, and together we created a series of poems and a collection of haiku (a three-line Japanese poem with 17 syllables, 5-7-5). Other participants have subsequently offered reflections, which we would also like to share with you here.

We offer this article to you, as a celebration of our time together; our learning, connections and creating, in the hope that there might be some learning in here for you and that you may consider joining us at our next conference in Basel, Switzerland in 2018.

https://doi.org/10.19043/ipdj.62.002

This article by Debbie Baldie, Angela Brown, Jan Dewing, Caroline Dickson, Karen LeGrow, Maria Mackay, Rebekkah Middleton and Kate Sanders is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.