Ringing in the New Year as a Nurse

[Erin Lee, BSN, RN]

Cheers to 2025, Nurses! ✨

For a decade, I worked the night shift every New Year's Eve—it was always my chosen holiday to work so others could take time off. But in 2020, I decided to change my holiday schedule and take New Year's Eve off for the first time, celebrating with a night of live music in the city, thinking it would be "my" year. Just a few months later, COVID was hitting us full force, and as an ICU nurse, I think we can all agree it wasn't the year any of us could have imagined.

After that, life changed for everyone. The following year, I approached New Year's differently than ever before. Now that I'm away from the bedside my New Year's looks nothing like I once planned—no parties, no work—just a day and evening filled with family, food, reflection, and sometimes even heading to bed before midnight.

What about you?

👉 Are you working this New Year's Eve or spending it with loved ones?

👉 Do you have a tradition or goal to start 2025 on the right foot?

👉 What's one piece of advice you'd give fellow nurses for the year ahead?

Here's to a happy, healthy, and fulfilling 2025! 🎆 💙

[Davey Do]

Thank you for the well wishes, Erin!

I'm retired now, but volunteered to work every holiday, for the census was low, the big wigs were not to be seen, and magical things happened when the mainstream was off the clock.

Practicing a program of daily improvement is my stock-in-trade and dates mean nothing.

My advice: It's one year closer to retirement and hopefully, someday, you'll see that everything comes out in the wash.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

What a nice, positive post. I'm 66 and still working hard. I'm an APP now so the stress is very different then when I worked bedside. And...while I'm one year closer to retirement, its still several years in the future. 

 

Happy New Year 2025!