Why We Are Nurses
During National Nurses Week, reflect on the reasons and rewards that drew you to — and keep you in — nursing

By Daisy Rodriguez, MN, MPA, RN
May 8, 2003

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!

Daisy Rodriguez, MN, MPA, RN, is an administrative nursing supervisor at San Ramon (Calif.) Regional Medical Center. After earning her basic nursing degree and master's degree from the University of the Philippines, she obtained a second master's degree in public administration and health services at the University of California, San Francisco. She has been in nursing administration for the last 20 years. She co-authored the chapter on Filipino women in Caring for Women Cross-Culturally, and co-authored a published study on the health status of Filipinos.

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