I AM NURSING
I AM NURSING!
I am a metaphor. A dichotomy. I am different things to different people. I am enigmatic and incisive. I am female. I am male. I am prestigious and defamed; simplistic and complex. I am a profession; a job.
I AM NURSING!
I am special. In this atmosphere of shortage and crisis and discontent and negatives, let's stand up and shout to the world: Hooray for NURSING! Let's rekindle that special feeling - that incredible pride - that multi-faceted gem which frequently loses it's brilliance, often needs polishing but never decreases in value.
I AM NURSING!
I am overworked and underpaid. I am too often tired but refreshed by a patient't smile - a thank you, a clutching hand.
What other profession encompasses the strengths and rewards of NURSING? We are primary care and tertiary care and family centered care and team work. We are wellness care and sickness care. We are prevention and education and rehabilitation. NURSING is caring for people...in hospitals, in homes, in extended care facilities, in mental institutions, in the communtiy. We are all people: yound and old and rich and poor, all colors, all creeds. From our first breath of life until our last, NURSING is there. We are all encompassing and all-important.
I AM NURSING!
I observe, assess, listen, monitor, hear, feel, manage. I heal. I care. Our existence is centerd around caring withing a heavy framework of knowlege and skill. I am NURSING! I am kind heartedness; I am humanity. I am human!
No one ever told us it would be easy. No one ever promised that the caring would not always be effortless and would often lose its luster. The nursing ideals, principles and philosophies we learn and practice with such wonderful enthusiasm and gusto do not prepare us for the intimidating all too frightening reality of nursing. We are life; we are death. And we are everything in between.
I AM NURSING!
I am sensitivity, compassion, empathy, tenderness, and caring. I am a baby's first lusty cry. I break fevers and dry tears. I am the faith of a cancer patient, the hope of the incurable, the love of the forsaken, the dignity of the dying. NURSING is watching progress and knowing that my knowledge, my skill, my exquisite ingenuity helped make it all happen. To perform the miracles of technology; to know disease. To touch. To teach. To heal. To smile. To hug. To NURSE>
I AM NURSING!
I am frustration, Hostility, Disillusionment, Despair, Defeat, Love-Hate, Weariness. I am Highs and Lows; I am 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I am Utter Fatigue and Ultimate Tears. I am Pride and Humility. I am Satisfaction and Malcontent.
I AM NURSING!
My very own rainbow. My own colors. My sunshine. My rain.
I AM NURSING!
I make a difference. I grow. And I celebrate being a NURSE!
By Dorothy A. Burtch, RN
Grace Hospital, Detroit, MI
