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As we celebrate National Nurses Week and honor Florence
Nightingale on her birthday, I pause to ponder the question,
"Why are we nurses?" I search for the answers
in my nurse's soul and come up with a multitude of reasons.
We are nurses because we care. We care about our patients,
for whom we had sworn to care, protect and heal. It
is our duty as professionals. Every one of our patients
gives us a reason to be a nurse. We only have to see
the relief and gratitude in our patients' eyes after
we have eased their pain.
We rejoice with them when a baby is born; we cry with
their loved ones when death takes them away. We take
pride in our contribution to their healing that brings
them home from surgery. We hide our tears when we know
that saying goodbye to one may be our last time. We
put on a brave front when life is hanging in the balance.
We valiantly fight to advocate for our patients' rights
to the best care, or even to die with dignity.
We work hand in hand with other caring professionals
in the daily work of simply providing care so that we
can send our patients home in better health than when
they first arrived, then go home with a sense of relief
at the end of a hard shift, having fluffed the pillow
of one lonely patient.
There may be other reasons why we are nurses. The nursing
shortage has placed nurses higher up on the food chain.
Nurses now receive much better wages than ever. Professional
nurses enjoy the respect of the health care community
and the public. We have traveled the long road to professionalism
and have gained hard-won victories along the way, thanks
to our many champions in the profession.
Yet, there may be reasons why we no longer may want
to be nurses. While a war rages in another part of the
world, we, too, are fighting our own battle on another
front. Many of us are still in the trenches, struggling
with the daily rigors of patient care, adhering to seemingly
endless legal and regulatory requirements, meeting institutional
standards and keeping up with the expectations of demanding
clients. We may be confronted with making life-and-death
decisions in a split second. Stressful clinical decision-making
and problem solving are our way of life. We want higher
pay because we think we deserve more. At the end of
the day, we are battle-weary and ready to call it quits,
only to come back another day.
Why are we nurses? We can glean an answer from Florence
Nightingale's words: "Let us be anxious to do well,
not for selfish praise but to honor and advance the
cause, the work we have taken up. Let us value our training
not as it makes us cleverer or superior to others, but
inasmuch as it enables us to be more useful and helpful
to our fellow creatures, the sick, those who most want
our help. Let it be our ambition to be thorough good
women, good nurses, and never let us be ashamed of the
name of 'nurse' " (from Florence Nightingale's
selected letters).
Her pledge still rings true as it did a century and
a half ago:
The Florence Nightingale Pledge
"I solemnly pledge myself before God and the
presence of this assembly to pass my life in purity
and to practice my profession faithfully.
I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and
mischievous and will not take or knowingly administer
any harmful drug.
I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate
the standard of my profession and will hold in confidence
all personal matters committed to my keeping and all
family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice
of my calling.
With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician
in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those
committed to my care."
To the unsung heroes and heroines, I salute you. Happy
Nurses Week!
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