By Caryl Clem
Nurses are anchors in the medical field, monitoring patient care alongside doctors working long demanding shifts. I don’t know anyone whose life has not been saved or improved by adequate medical care. As essential as nurses are, it took Congress 21 years to award them the recognition they deserved after it was first proposed.
Congress in 1953 was asked to consider a National Nurse Week during Eisenhower. In 1974 a National Nurse Week was put on the calendar under Nixon to begin on May 6 and end on Florence Nightingales birthday, May 12. Florence left her home in Britain to attend the needs of soldiers during the Crimean War. Legendary stories about the “Lady with the Lamp” recall her career changing achievements in nursing education. She recruited the first female nursing crew shipped to the hospital where the water was contaminated, patients lay in their own feces, and food was rationed. She enforced cleaning standards that cut the death rate by 66%. Past history haunts us today as another part of that territory is under siege today with similar conditions.
Nurses perform with flawless skill and infinite passion holding a patients hand during their last minutes or handing a newborn to the waiting Mother. Nurses are mental giants, focused with no breaks during long hours of surgery. Nurses help you mentally face the hardest decisions in life patiently answering questions and guiding you to find truthful real answers. There is no room for error on the job or a place to hide on a bad hair day. Nurses have formidable endurance. Nurses are miracles in human form. During the fatal passing of loved ones, nurses felt like angels guiding me through my grief.
Like medical field police as nurses guard and attend patients in every room and hallway but their job has a higher risk for INJURY than law enforcement policeman in most states according to an article published on September 11, 2017 in the Washington Post. One example, a man in South Carolina attacked 14 nurses while undergoing treatment, and a Louisiana nurse died trying to pull an attacker off a fellow nurse. The danger level has kept increasing and a sign is posted in a Chicago Hospital, Do Not Assault, We Are Here To Help published in USA Today, Jan 10, 2022. The American Nurses Association runs annual conferences to discuss how to address growing violence in their workplace. Webmd.com on March 18, 2021 On The Front Lines: Violence Against Nurses on the Rise covers the tragic scope of this issue.
The scope of the nursing field and expanded licensing options proves nursing care is critical for healing. To keep nursing a desirable career, they need our support. Violence in their workplace is unacceptable. THANK YOU to all of the nurses who are just a heartbeat away when we need them. THANK YOU for hanging in there when too many have forgotten the honor you deserve. I hope the nurse uniform for the future isn’t a space suit with a helmet.