I hope you will indulge me for a few minutes to read a column that is not about health directly, but is still an incredibly important part of everyone’s wellness picture. Ponder the last interaction you had with any health care facility, whether your own doctor’s office, an after hours clinic, a hospital or testing center. Chances are good that at some point during that encounter a nurse, whether an RN, an LPN or an NP was part of your care team. Our health care system would come to a grinding halt if it weren’t for the care that the almost 3 million nurses who work in the U.S. provide each day.
This is National Nurses Week, starting May 6 and continuing through May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday. This week is set aside to “ honor the nation’s indispensable registered nurses for their tireless commitment 365 days a year.” (American Nurses Association). It was first recognized in 1974 when a week was designated by the White House as National Nursing Week and President Richard Nixon issued a proclamation after twenty years of urging by various nursing associations.
In an announcement regarding National Nurses Week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials state, “The nursing profession plays a critical role in improving patient outcomes, increasing access, coordinating care, and reducing health-care costs. The Affordable Care Act and the Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report place nurses at the center of health-care transformation in the United States. Numerous studies have shown that patients fare worse when nurse staffing is inadequate, with poorer health outcomes, more complications, less satisfaction, and greater likelihood of death. A 2011 report linked inadequate nurse staffing with increased patient mortality.”
Wow. Those are strong words to describe the critical role that nurses play at the bedside and within the larger system of how we receive health care in this country. In the annual Gallup poll of 2011, nurses were rated the most trusted profession in the U.S. for the 12th time in 13 years. Nurses’ honesty and ethics were rated “very high” or “high” by 84 percent of poll respondents.
Whether a nurse works in a hospital, an office, in the military, in individual’s homes or the myriad other situations that are available within the profession, the satisfaction that comes with a rewarding career is tempered by the increasing demands and the stress inherent in the work.
I hope you will indulge me for a few minutes to read a column that is not about health directly, but is still an incredibly important part of everyone’s wellness picture. Ponder the last interaction you had with any health care facility, whether your own doctor’s office, an after hours clinic, a hospital or testing center. Chances are good that at some point during that encounter a nurse, whether an RN, an LPN or an NP was part of your care team. Our health care system would come to a grinding halt if it weren’t for the care that the almost 3 million nurses who work in the U.S. provide each day.
This is National Nurses Week, starting May 6 and continuing through May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday. This week is set aside to “ honor the nation’s indispensable registered nurses for their tireless commitment 365 days a year.” (American Nurses Association). It was first recognized in 1974 when a week was designated by the White House as National Nursing Week and President Richard Nixon issued a proclamation after twenty years of urging by various nursing associations.
In an announcement regarding National Nurses Week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials state, “The nursing profession plays a critical role in improving patient outcomes, increasing access, coordinating care, and reducing health-care costs. The Affordable Care Act and the Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report place nurses at the center of health-care transformation in the United States. Numerous studies have shown that patients fare worse when nurse staffing is inadequate, with poorer health outcomes, more complications, less satisfaction, and greater likelihood of death. A 2011 report linked inadequate nurse staffing with increased patient mortality.”
Wow. Those are strong words to describe the critical role that nurses play at the bedside and within the larger system of how we receive health care in this country. In the annual Gallup poll of 2011, nurses were rated the most trusted profession in the U.S. for the 12th time in 13 years. Nurses’ honesty and ethics were rated “very high” or “high” by 84 percent of poll respondents.
Whether a nurse works in a hospital, an office, in the military, in individual’s homes or the myriad other situations that are available within the profession, the satisfaction that comes with a rewarding career is tempered by the increasing demands and the stress inherent in the work.
“The nurse’s role has long been regarded as stress-filled based upon the physical labor, human suffering, work hours, staffing and interpersonal relationships that are central to the work nurses do. Since the mid-1980s, however, nurses’ work stress may be escalating due to the increasing use of technology, continuing rises in healthcare costs, and turbulence within the work environment,” states Bonnie M. Jennings in a 2007 handbook for nurses about work stress and burnout.
Ask any nurse you know about their job, and I bet they will have some version of work-related stress to relay. I hope that they will also have stories to tell about the people they encounter every day, the ones who were helped by the care and concern that that particular nurse was able to give them. Nurses go into this profession because they truly want to make a difference in people’s lives when they may be at an extremely vulnerable point in a medical journey. Nurses also take joy in celebrating good outcomes with patients who have pulled through a health scare or have been able to make great strides in achieving a wellness goal, either for themselves or a family member.
The next time you have the opportunity, thank a nurse for his or her care and concern, for the hours that they put in serving sometimes cranky, sick people and for their dedication to a profession that is often challenging and stressful. I guarantee you will make their day.
Pam Maxson is a health educator at Noyes Hospital in Dansville. If you have questions or suggestions for future articles, she can be reached at pmaxson@noyes-hsopital.org or 585-335-4327.
