How do you celebrate your calling during National Nurses Week?

Published in Nurse.com by Jennifer Mensik, PhD, RN, FAAN

Make a Nurses Week resolution to recognize each other every day.

One of my favorite sayings about nursing is our ordinary is actually extraordinary. We provide an amazing service to the public, whether in hospitals, clinics, long-term care or in the community.

Being a nurse is not something we turn off completely at any time. It doesn’t stop at the end of our shift like many other professions.

We are there to help at a moment’s notice because we care. That perspective of caring is always with us and we believe we are doing what any other person might do in the same situation — that it was our job.

We have become so accustomed to the caring we do and the miracles we assist with daily, that what we and our colleagues do “daily feels” as if it is our job. As nurses, we also don’t like to take credit as we should for the healing that we assist with. Absent our caring, people would not heal and get well, and that is special.

Enter Nurse’s Day and Nurses Week. Celebrated since 1965, the original intent was to raise awareness of the important role of nursing, which mark our contributions to society. Nurses Week was first unofficially observed in October 1954, the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s mission to Crimea.

It was later changed to May 6 and officially recognized by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. The American Nurses Association expanded the holiday into National Nurses Week, celebrated from May 6 to May 12, in 1990. Over time, this week became the one time of year we as nurses truly expect we should receive external recognition for our contributions.

Organizations may do a variety of things to recognize nurses, ranging from giveaways to receptions. But does this serve the original intent of this week?

Have we all moved away from recognizing the important role in nursing that the outcome of our caring results in one week of food or tchotchkes a year? I am speaking here for administration and all nurses alike.

Let’s make a Nurses Week resolution to recognize each other more than once a year

What if each week throughout the year, you, your unit, department or organization decided to recognize yourselves? What if we recognized each other and ourselves daily? How do we give our gratitude to other nurses? How do we show our caring to others? How might this type of recognition look?

I asked many of my nursing friends how they should celebrate themselves and each other and here are some ideas:

Nursing retreats designed just for nurses by nurses. My colleagues and friends at the Arizona Nurses Association have organized this retreat for four years straight!

The DAISY recognition program is a formal program healthcare organizations can participate in to recognize the work of nurses. This program exists in all 50 states and 18 countries!

In our daily manager and administrative huddles at Oregon Health and Science University we discuss staff who deserve recognition. Clinical and non-clinical staff and managers know to escalate stories so individuals are recognized. There always are several staff members mentioned daily during these huddles.

Celebrate little victories, such as when a patient finds solace in music or speaks for the first time after visiting with a therapy dog. This might be just part of your routine day, but it is yours to celebrate. Take a moment to reflect on how your caring was part of this patient’s victory.

Write a letter to the editor in a non-nursing-related newspaper or magazine that reflects positively on the nursing profession.

Have a nursing school reunion.

Attend your state nursing association conference.

When we do not stop to recognize ourselves and others, we are not supporting ourselves or each other. When we don’t support each other, individually we can burn out and experience compassion fatigue, which makes it harder to provide a healing environment for those in our care.

Patients and families can tell when we don’t or can’t care any longer. Worse yet is we start to exhibit bullying behavior to others, instead of compassion and caring our colleagues and fellow nurses need just as much.

Nurses Week shouldn’t and can’t be just the only time we recognize, celebrate and demonstrate the importance of nursing. Each of us need to commit to a Nurses Week resolution to celebrate our profession, ourselves and each other each day!

Jennifer Mensik, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, is division director of care management at Oregon Health and Science University and instructor for Arizona State University College of Nursing and Health Innovation DNP program. She also is treasurer for the American Nurses Association. Formerly, Mensik was vice president of CE programming for Nurse.com published by OnCourse Learning. A second-edition book she authored, “The Nurse Manager’s Guide to Innovative Staffing,” won third place in the leadership category for the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards 2017.

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