Ignited
It has been decades since nurses have come together as a force to be reckoned with. And what is most interesting is that while the scattered rumbling was the same globally it took a thoughtless public comment from a television character to set the profession ablaze. In three days, the world of nursing, paramedics, CNAs, physicians, physician assistants and even our precious housekeepers have gained an audible voice. It is clear that we are at the end of our rope, the last nerve has been struck, we are bold, hear us roar.
I have never been more invigorated than during this last few days. I have been in healthcare for more than 40 years in some role and spent another 10 years wanting to be. It is wonderful to step outside the walls of the daily grind to hear the focus of the conversation be on the work. Not on all the things wrong with the job, but on the primary, prevailing reason we are all still in the profession. It is the passion, compassion and deep desire to care. Care for the injured, sick and dying. We are proud of the countless hours of overtime spent advocating, helping, comforting, resuscitating, acting in the interest of our patient.
Complete strangers cause us to lose sleep, grieve, celebrate, sigh, laugh, yell, grumble, cry, smile. And we gratefully wake up to do it again, over and over. Despite long hours, deplorable pay, no breaks, less than desirable staffing, obstacles in language, lack of supplies, not enough time, we show up and we find our reward. It is not in the check but in the fruit of our labor. We go home having survived the day, completing all that is needed to assure our patients have what they need, And we are satisfied because we know we did our best and this helped others. Our reward is most often in knowing we did it, and we did it well.
Needless to say when we get a compliment, card, kind word or report to a leader about our effort this is icing on our cake. It is amazing when we get that extra kudos though we don’t expect it. And sometimes there is that unhappy patient or family, that while their words may burn, it is most often a minor sting as we trudge into the next room to start it all over again.
So out on the stage of the Miss America pageant walks this beautiful, blonde, with a passion to give a voice to the masses. I doubt she expected that the voice would evolve in the way it did, but I also don't think the profession would have gained the momentum had it not been for the comments of those daytime talk show ‘employees’.
While it is not wrong to have an opinion, it is never desirable to insult what you clearly don't understand. They mocked her talent, a monologue on nursing. They mocked her dress, the uniform of a nurse. They mocked her stethoscope, the thing we use most to determine the course of life. They mocked her words, a real human story about an epidemic disease of aging. They mocked nursing. And the nurses roared.
In hallways, social media sites, meetings, news outlets the word and message has traveled that we ARE professional, we ARE talented, we ARE the monologue worth hearing. Photos, over 5000 today of proud healthcare providers and patients with uniforms, stethoscopes and stories to provide confirmation that we are indeed a real life drama series, running 24/7 around the globe. We sacrifice so much time, energy, family time, emotion that we cannot sacrifice the perception of our worth. And we should not.
As of today several sponsors have pulled their support of the show. The apologies of the employees of the tv show were less than sincere and actually implied it was the nurses fault for not seeing it their way. The challenge would actually seem to be that those tv employees need to see it our way, see things from the view of a nurse. Maybe, just maybe, those employees would come walk in the shoes of some of the folks they referred to as ‘just nurses’. Maybe they would understand why we rise up for this one thing, respect. I know it will never happen, but wouldn't that be glorious?
As a footnote to the media firestorm, today Ellen Degeneres had Miss Colorado on her show. She not only honored her for her pageant accomplishment but also acknowledged the trending social media related to her monologue. Miss Colorado said it is her talent and she wanted to use the platform to give a voice to those that otherwise do not have opportunity. She wanted to give a voice to nurses.
The question now remains, what will we do with the energy, unity, fire that is igniting the nursing and healthcare community? Will we be able to stand together for the common purpose of improving patient care, outcomes and working conditions or will we fall back into ambiguity. I hope the renewed pride in our profession will carry on, paying it forward to the nursing generation behind us.
I have never been more invigorated than during this last few days. I have been in healthcare for more than 40 years in some role and spent another 10 years wanting to be. It is wonderful to step outside the walls of the daily grind to hear the focus of the conversation be on the work. Not on all the things wrong with the job, but on the primary, prevailing reason we are all still in the profession. It is the passion, compassion and deep desire to care. Care for the injured, sick and dying. We are proud of the countless hours of overtime spent advocating, helping, comforting, resuscitating, acting in the interest of our patient.
Complete strangers cause us to lose sleep, grieve, celebrate, sigh, laugh, yell, grumble, cry, smile. And we gratefully wake up to do it again, over and over. Despite long hours, deplorable pay, no breaks, less than desirable staffing, obstacles in language, lack of supplies, not enough time, we show up and we find our reward. It is not in the check but in the fruit of our labor. We go home having survived the day, completing all that is needed to assure our patients have what they need, And we are satisfied because we know we did our best and this helped others. Our reward is most often in knowing we did it, and we did it well.
Needless to say when we get a compliment, card, kind word or report to a leader about our effort this is icing on our cake. It is amazing when we get that extra kudos though we don’t expect it. And sometimes there is that unhappy patient or family, that while their words may burn, it is most often a minor sting as we trudge into the next room to start it all over again.
So out on the stage of the Miss America pageant walks this beautiful, blonde, with a passion to give a voice to the masses. I doubt she expected that the voice would evolve in the way it did, but I also don't think the profession would have gained the momentum had it not been for the comments of those daytime talk show ‘employees’.
While it is not wrong to have an opinion, it is never desirable to insult what you clearly don't understand. They mocked her talent, a monologue on nursing. They mocked her dress, the uniform of a nurse. They mocked her stethoscope, the thing we use most to determine the course of life. They mocked her words, a real human story about an epidemic disease of aging. They mocked nursing. And the nurses roared.
In hallways, social media sites, meetings, news outlets the word and message has traveled that we ARE professional, we ARE talented, we ARE the monologue worth hearing. Photos, over 5000 today of proud healthcare providers and patients with uniforms, stethoscopes and stories to provide confirmation that we are indeed a real life drama series, running 24/7 around the globe. We sacrifice so much time, energy, family time, emotion that we cannot sacrifice the perception of our worth. And we should not.
As of today several sponsors have pulled their support of the show. The apologies of the employees of the tv show were less than sincere and actually implied it was the nurses fault for not seeing it their way. The challenge would actually seem to be that those tv employees need to see it our way, see things from the view of a nurse. Maybe, just maybe, those employees would come walk in the shoes of some of the folks they referred to as ‘just nurses’. Maybe they would understand why we rise up for this one thing, respect. I know it will never happen, but wouldn't that be glorious?
As a footnote to the media firestorm, today Ellen Degeneres had Miss Colorado on her show. She not only honored her for her pageant accomplishment but also acknowledged the trending social media related to her monologue. Miss Colorado said it is her talent and she wanted to use the platform to give a voice to those that otherwise do not have opportunity. She wanted to give a voice to nurses.
The question now remains, what will we do with the energy, unity, fire that is igniting the nursing and healthcare community? Will we be able to stand together for the common purpose of improving patient care, outcomes and working conditions or will we fall back into ambiguity. I hope the renewed pride in our profession will carry on, paying it forward to the nursing generation behind us.
I was watching The View when they discussed the pagent, which was on the evening before and I did not watch. When the mentioned a contestant came out and for the talent portion and recited a monologue it did indeed make me snicker. The photo they showed was of a nurse in blue scrubs wearing a stethoscope and no mention was made that she was an actual nurse. I did not see their very brief comments in any way as a slight against nursing. I saw it as amusing that someone would recite as their "talent" because typically pagent talents have been, singing, dancing, twirling, playing musical instruments, gymnastics, etc. I can' tell you how surprised I was when this turned into an "anti nursing" story and went back and warptxhed The View again and still see it as comedians discussing the unusual "talent". I then also searched online and found the pagent talent clip and listened/ watched the 60-90 second monologue. It was a very touching and moving story and something that thousands of nurses go through daily in the course of their workday. I have great respect for nurses, have worked alongside them, my two best friends are nurses. When I asked them both to watch the clip of The View that caused this whole thing, neither one was offended, thought it was funny as well ( maybe we have similar sense of humor which is why we were friends). They hadn't seen the beauty pagent either and I suggested they watch it sometime. One of them commented that it is nice nurses getting alll this attention but given what she saw of the clip when the comedians so briefly discussied that a contestant recited a monologue as a talent while others had sung opera, played the violin, etc. she was really surprised that there was this knee jerk reaction that took the comments to be a so anti-nursing when that didn't appear to be the intent at all. I agree!
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