New Resolve
It's time for nurses to use their professional influence to effect change in 2002

By Carol Bradley, MSN, RN, California Editor
January 7, 2002

There is something about the post-holiday energy that I find invigorating. It marks both the end of a year and the beginning of a new one. New presents are assembled, installed or put to use at the same time that holiday decorations get boxed and stored for another year. My enthusiasm for closet cleaning usually results in at least a couple trips to the local charity as part of the pruning process.

Thank-you notes are written and the address book is updated from holiday cards received. I clean off my desk and organize and rewrite my "to do" list. Finally, with mixed emotions, the end of my daughter's school vacation symbolizes the official beginning of a new year.

As the New Year begins, there is the inevitable yet purposeful discarding of old and embracing of new. Each year always begins with the best of intentions for making this year the best. If one takes an optimistic view, 2002 promises to be an important year for our nursing community. There is both a great need as well as opportunity for us if we closely examine the challenges that lie in front of us. For us, too, there is a need to discard some of the old and embrace the new. It is the natural cycle of life that encourages new growth and rejuvenation.

Now and for the future, the unrelenting demand for nurses has its upside. With increasing emphasis on retention, the shortage of nurses can serve as a catalyst to ensure the improvement of the work environment in many ways. However, this depends on whether we can find a way to coalesce around a vision that provides direction for needed changes. It's time to sit down and talk candidly to your boss (or your boss's boss) about what you think your employer should be doing to retain and reward its nursing staff.

It also means that we need to capitalize on using our growing influence as a positive and collaborative force for change. Although the world does not revolve around us, the delivery of health care in the United States depends on the talents and presence of an adequate nursing workforce.

There has probably never been a more important time for nurses to influence the choices that are being made by policy-makers, employers and even patients. In fact, the demand for nurses already has had a positive impact on improving the stagnated economic position of nurses.

Nursing education also is receiving some overdue attention, although meaningful action by our Legislature still eludes us. Each of us has an important role in influencing and mentoring the nurses of tomorrow. Whether it is how we speak of nursing to our children's friends, how we embrace the new nursing student or impart our knowledge and expertise to new nurses who practice beside us, we are each critical to the future of nursing.

Now is the time to also take advantage of the public's increased interest in health care and improve the understanding of nursing's contribution to it. The presence of a nursing shortage should be translated as a reason for consumers to value nursing expertise, as well as evidence that nursing is in demand as a professional career that offers unparalleled flexibility, challenge, job security and rewards.

Once again, we can face the New Year happy to be nurses and positive about the future of nursing.

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