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My friends and colleagues, it is with great pleasure and pride, that for the sixth year, I am privileged to end you a message of appreciation on National Nurses Week. Each year, on two occasions, we disregard the business of Nurse-Recruiter.com and try to write words of our deep respect for your work.
My goal is to help us recall with great compassion and conviction, the very special work we do. In my more that 25 years of nursing practice, I have had the fortune to work with hundreds and hundreds of the most dedicated, knowledgeable, and caring individuals on Earth. I am above all else, honored to call myself a nurse. I thank you for this opportunity to share some thoughts about our profession and the works that we do.
But this message is not about me. It's about you! It's about the nurses that provide daily care to the sick, the nurses who manage our healthcare institutions. It's about the nurses that quietly serve in the home's of their clients, the researchers, the educators, the associations, and the countless others that contribute to the most respected profession, Nursing. This message is dedicated to you-the RNs, LPNs, and CNAs.
From advanced practice, to the provision of ADLs, we all provide comfort and nursing care. To you my friends, to my colleagues, and to my teachers, my prayer is that this year, not only will you enjoy the celebrations of this week, but that this week will lead to several opportunities for us to advance our profession, personally and collectively.
This years official theme is "Your Voice, Your Health, Your Life", well those of you that have been reading my messages over all these years, may remember tributes that touch closely to this theme. I think it is the perfect theme, perhaps even the best one of my career. Let's think about each of these for a moment or two.
Your Voice, how many times have I seen patients write, or heard them say; my nurse was like the voice of an angel. Indeed, could one find a more angelic profession on this planet? I am hard pressed to think of one. How many times have I heard patients, families and doctors say, the
nurse's voice was one of knowledge? Countless are the numbers, and each only partly understanding the true depth of knowledge and wisdom you posses. Continue these great works, I must say to you. But let me offer this for your consideration. You are surely aware that our profession is headed for crisis. There are too few nurses practicing today, too few students enrolling, and far to many of us using our voice to express all that is wrong in our careers. The problem in doing so is that we cause more to quit nursing, and fewer to enroll in nursing school.
Don't believe me?
Visit my friend Aaron Cooper's website (UltimateNurse.com), and you will find countless entries by would be students and parents who make comments like, "I was thinking about nursing but after reading this story, maybe it's not such a good idea", or "I just can't take the way I'm being treated at work any more…does any one have a good idea of something else I can do with my nursing background?"
While it is important, and indeed a professional responsibility to identify issues, and apply the nursing process to address these issues, it is also important for us to remember to spend time voicing all that is great about our profession. Lift your voice to these two challenges:
- Promote Our Profession. Attend career awareness days at middle and high schools, send an editorial to your local paper, and talk with young people about what it is to be a nurse. It's not hard to do, and you'll find most people are surprised to find out about the education, complexity, flexibility, and autonomy that nurses enjoy.
- Promote your colleagues. Don't ever miss a chance to voice a "thanks", or "well done". Don't ever miss an opportunity to voice to "the boss", about a great job someone else has done. Don't ever miss a chance to be a voice of compassion and understanding for someone else's bad day. We do it for our patients all the time, let's make sure we do it for one another too.
Let me voice this to you-most of my friends have nicer homes than I, most have more expensive cars, most take better vacations every year, most don't have to budget as closely as I, but NONE have had a richer life. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded". In how many lives has your practice made such difference? Feel good, feel great, feel privileged, and feel honored by that number, it is a gift from God and no one, and nothing can ever take that from you!
Your Health. Now here's a subject for which I could write and entire book, and I think most nurses who need the information, avoid it any way. Why do I say that? Well, I think we spend so much time taking care of others, we often neglect ourselves. And like we have been taught, we must think of our whole self. Do things that are good for your health. It's critical. I know that at the end of a 12 hour shift, with another one around the corner, we often miss meals, drink to much coffee (basically ignoring most of our needs), short of a little sleep, a quick shower, and then we are back at it again. Okay, there is little one can do to add more hours to the day, but there are things we can do to make them a little better, and I can tell you, I am among the most guilty.
So, take your vitamins, especially if you're not eating right on those days, drink more water and less coffee. If your position is one that is not physically active during your workday, be sure to take a walk. And if you do all these things, don't forget about your emotional health too. Make sure that you find time for yourself, every single day. Take a little time and enjoy a great book, take a walk at the park, enjoy the sunset or sunrise, but make sure you do it for you.
Your life is blessed in ways beyond my ability to articulate. Most of you are here in the U.S., as am I. You are educated, you are skilled, you are gifted, you are caring, you are compassionate, you have a home, access to health care, you are well fed, and your are considered to be the most honest professionals in all the land. The American public truly appreciates what we do.
Year in and year out, they have voted nurses to be the most trusted profession. More than doctors, more than judges, more than policemen, more than any one! I know in this hurried world, people don't always remember to say thank you! But thanks can be seen, just look in to the eyes of those for whom you care, they have entrusted in you their health, their advocacy, their needs, and their hopes. You are the nurse, the mild mannered, unassuming, and mighty professional who makes the health care system work! Without you, a diagnosis could be missed; required treatments unknown, more repeat hospitalizations would be required, shorter life spans, and so much more. Your life, (though you may not always stop to think of it in such terms), is a powerful presence of all the most noble attributes of mankind, treating others with dignity, respect, and care, without regards to religion, ethnicity, or political conviction. I have written this before, if all of humanity lived their lives with the same attributes that make nurses who they are, the search for Utopia would likely end.
As this week progresses, we will be emailing you on a few occasions, I hope you won't mind. We have joined with other sites, and companies to provide for some special prizes, announcements, and offers that we think will help to enrich your week. So be watching for our (I promise much shorter) notes in you e-mail box.
My friends, my colleagues, my true heroes, wherever you are, and in what ever capacity your serve the profession, your life has meaning, and purpose. The world, though sometimes kicking and screaming, is not just a better place because of you; it is a far better place because of you. I salute you during this week and I honor all the best that you represent. My very best wishes and heartfelt prayers are with you this week and every day of the year. May God bless you and keep you always.
Pat Mahan
Founder
Nurse-Recruiter.com
P.S. I'd like to express my sincere thanks to Mike Zwerdling, RN for the post card images used on this page. Mike has just published a new book entitled Postcards of Nursing A Worldwide Tribute published by Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins. This beautiful book is a magnificent gift for any nurse, or your own nursing collection. We will be offering a copy to one lucky subscriber later this week. If you'd like to find our more details, or order a copy of Mike's new book, you can visit his website at: www.nursepostcard.com.
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