Editor's Note
Unsung
heroes
Show
your appreciation for administrative members and volunteers
Beth Ulrich, Ed.D.,
RN, South Central Editor
April
16, 2001
April
22-28 is designated as both Administrative Professionals
Week and Volunteer Week. It’s a good time for us to say
thank you to some of the people who help us deliver care.
Not
only is next week Volunteer Week, but 2001 is the International
Year of Volunteers. It’s hard to imagine a hospital that
survives without its volunteers. Across the United States,
hospital volunteers contribute millions of hours of not
only free labor, but also of care and nurturing for both
patients and staff.
Whether
they are the first to receive people at hospital entrances,
or to sit with the family of a critically ill patient, these
wonderful people add a human quality to our large and—to
the layperson—often scary facilities. Their only reward
is the thanks that we, and our patients, give them.
We should
thank them throughout the year, of course, but next week
is a time to emphasize how much we appreciate them and all
that they do.
Administrative
Professionals Week includes an appreciation for unit secretaries,
clerks, administrative assistants, executive administrative
assistants, etc. All are vital to our success.
In hospitals,
for example, we all know that good unit secretaries can
make the job so much easier and not-so-good unit secretaries
can foster chaos. Here’s a person who, often armed with
only a high school diploma and a little on-the-job training,
has to have the ability of an interpreter to make sense
of medical jargon used among nurses and doctors, the decoding
skills of a cryptographer to decipher orders, the ESP of
a psychic to know where the nurses are at any given moment,
the detective skills of Columbo to find physicians when
they are needed, and the persuasive skills of Florence Nightingale
to convince central supply to find and deliver that much-needed
article right now.
You
probably will not be surprised by a recent online poll by
the International Association of Administrative Professionals
[www.iaap-hq.org]
that revealed that the greatest challenges faced by administrative
professionals in the last three years included fewer staff
and more responsibility and the requirements of more independent
thinking and advanced high-tech skills. Sounds pretty familiar,
doesn’t it?
As with
volunteers, administrative professionals should be recognized
all year long, but next week is a special opportunity.
If you
haven’t planned something yet, there’s still time. Let’s
take this opportunity to tell the people who help us care
for our patients how much we appreciate them and all that
they do.
