STRONG, independent, motivated, hardworking, reliable, determined, loyal, selfless, compassionate, dedicated, loving.
These characteristics aptly describe a nurse. All those who have been under the care of these Florence Nightingales, this writer included, could attest to this fact.
For the past three years, I have been under the care of competent nurses of Fremont Dialysis Center: head nurse Mikay Recate, Gigi Gulanes, Cyndy Almeda, Grace Pasadilla, Zhabel Santiago, Leslie Panes, Cedric Tere, Ahlfie Bonito, Jess Morong, and other trainee nurses. To them, I say thank you.
And I could not choose a better time to express my heartfelt gratitude to these healing nurses than this time of the year when the whole world is celebrating the National Nurses Week.
It is also fitting that the theme of this year’s celebration is “Nurses: Leading the Way.” After all, nurses lead the way in showing an elderly patient how to manage his illness.
They also lead the way in making sure their patients, both children and adults, get the vaccinations or medicines they need. They lead the way in helping our young mothers learn how to care for their infants. And they lead the way in conducting research to promote high-quality life for those with chronic illnesses and help all of us stay healthy across the lifespan.
And nurses, our trusted advisers on health issues, lead the way in reaching out to their patients, neighbors and families to make sure they are given the proper health care they need. Nurses also help patients use new health information technology tools to manage their own care and ultimately improve their health.
Thus, we appreciate the contributions and commitments nurses make, and educate the public about the significant work they perform.
Following are quotes that we hope will inspire our nurses:
Nursing would be a dream job if there were no doctors. — Gerhard Kocher
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts. — Florence Nightingale
Caring is the essence of nursing. — Jean Watson
The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest. — William Osler
Nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription. — Val Saintsbury
Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep and energy … nurses are rarely short on caring. — Sharon Hudacek, “A Daybook for Nurses”
When I think about all the patients and their loved ones that I have worked with over the years, I know most of them don’t remember me nor I them. But I do know that I gave a little piece of myself to each of them and they to me and those threads make up the beautiful tapestry in my mind that is my career in nursing. — Donna Wilk Cardillo, “A Daybook for Beginning Nurses”
When you’re a nurse, you know that every day, you will touch a life, or a life will touch yours. — Anonymous/PN
