Politics is not limited to Presidential campaigns and pie-in-the-sky promises. It is inherent in our jobs as nurses, and it informs our everyday actions on behalf of the patients in our care. And when it does come time to stand up and be counted, our voices must never be assumed to be a chorus singing as one.
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I have been a political animal all of my life. From the time my grade school held a vigil for Bobby Kennedy and a mock Presidential election in the same year, I've followed the fortunes and follies of our nation's leaders, stayed abreast of political trends, and even changed from conservative to liberal and back again.
However, as I've grown older I have come to the conclusion that politics isn't just about politicians and pie-in-the-sky campaign promises, but something that affects us in our everyday lives at work. Who hasn't heard of the term "office politics"? Every workplace has its individual set of unwritten ground rules; run afoul of it and you risk being ostracized, even terminated in more extreme cases. It's a dog-eat-dog---or perhaps more accurately, nurse-eat-nurse---world out there, and you've got to be tough (and smart) to survive.
The flip side to this is how politics forms the basis for what we call patient advocacy. Without realizing it, we make political decisions on behalf of those in our care every day when we discuss the merits of "futile care" with the physician and family of a blind, demented 90-year-old man with stage IV decubiti and urosepsis; when we push a recovering surgery patient to walk just a little farther and deep breathe just a couple more times even though she doesn't want to; when we call the doctor to request an order for Ativan not because the patient is driving us crazy, but because he's driving HIMSELF crazy.
And yes, politics also informs our social consciences and in turn, our voting habits. This is where the public at large, and even nursing leaders, tend to get us wrong: by seeing nurses as a monolith. Politicians, especially those of a left-leaning persuasion, look at us and practically salivate, thinking they can count on us to deliver the votes for social programs, stronger unions, and so-called "reproductive rights".
I cannot overstate how wrong-headed this view is, not merely because I personally do not support those causes, but because I'm acquainted with many, many nurses and we all think differently, even when we agree on most things. For example, I have a nurse friend who, like me, is pro-life but also is pro-death penalty, while I (in later life) have concluded that the commandment "thou shalt not kill" doesn't make an exception for the State. I also work with a nurse who is about as far from me on the political spectrum as it's possible to be, but who is adamantly anti-abortion and goes so far as to volunteer both time and money to help new mothers who have no support systems or resources to help them take care of their babies.
It is my hope that as the election of 2012 comes and goes, more political analysts and campaign managers will realize that NO group should be pigeon-holed as a voting bloc, and learn to tailor their messages to reach those who don't conform to their idea of how nurses think. In addition, I would like to see the state and national nursing associations, such as the ANA, open up the "big tent" to include nurses who don't support the proliferation of unions, who vote Republican, and who hold associate's degrees or are LPNs. After all, we are ALL nurses!
