Oh Nurse

Starting today, May 6, the nation begins a week long celebration of National Nurses Week. Leave it to nurses to have a celebration that begins not on a Sunday or Monday, but on a Wednesday.  My first reaction, was why would they do this?  Is it to emphasize that their profession is on the front line of health care all day long, every day of the year?  Or to use that now tired phrase 24-7-365, which has now been simply shortened to 24-7?  While it starts on Wednesday this year, the day of the week on which it starts changes, as it always starts on May 6.  Why May 6 was chosen I do not know, but one site had it being related to the birthday of Florence Nightingale.  However, Florence was born on May 12, which corresponds to the end date of the seven days.  Going back in history, it was actually first celebrated in the US in 1954 during October, to correspond to the beginning of Nightingale's service in Crimea.  National Nurses week was formally proclaimed by President Nixon in 1974.  In 1981, representative of the humility of nurses, or perhaps only the thinking that a women could understand, at the urging of nurses in New Mexico, a resolution prepared, adopted and signed (by President Reagan) to advocate May 6 as National Nurse Recognition day.  This was then expanded to a week by the American Nursing Association, in recognition of the days worked by nurses. (So, it related to 24-7.)  In nurse parlance, you do not start the recognition on the day of their esteemed colleague, but rather earlier, even before it became a week long celebration.  Perhaps it was an afterthought, seven days would end on May 12, or perhaps it was by accident.  In the end they decided to recognize Florence.

Does this describe a nurse you know?

Florence, was born in Florence, Italy in 1820, although she is English and not Italian.  Her parents were rather wealthy, with her father having two estates to his name.  She often clashed with her mother, a good English social climber, who adhered to upper class social conventions of the time.  In that sense, she would forbid her daughter to get involved in the unseemly work of being a nurse.  After all, an upper class English women should marry a man of like standing, and be a dutiful spouse and entertain other members of the upper class.  While they may have children, we know that many in that social class farmed out the raising of their children to others--nannies and nurses.  Nursing was not the profession it has come to be today.  Rather, nursing was thought of as a menial profession suitable for the working class, and certainly not suitable for the daughter of a wealthy English landowner.

...stays in the Nurse's office

In 1944 Florence would disobey the wishes of her parents and enter a nursing school at Lutheran Hospital in Kaiserswerth, Germany.   Nightengale would move back to England in 1850 and take a position at a hospital in Middlesex to care for ailing governesses, a bunch of Mary Poppins'.  She was a pioneer of the time, recognizing the problems brought about by unsanitary conditions.  It was her mission to get things cleaned up (sounds like my wife).  This activity so impressed the administration at the hospital that she was soon to become a nursing superintendent.  But, it was her work during the Crimean War that brought her activity to a forefront and recognition by the British army.  Vladimir Putin may have reclaimed Crimea fourteen months ago, but back then, Russia would end up losing the Crimean War to an odd alliance of the Ottoman's, French and British.  Not unlike today, Russia was attempting to take control of territory that was part of a declining Ottoman Empire.  The French and the British thought it in their interests to  prevent Russian aggression and accumulation of territory.

This statement is right up there with"
"I'm a Nurse"

In the United States, up until the Civil War, most nurses were actually men.  Most men were called to fight in the Civil War, or do other duties which left nurse care to women.  Some men, like Walt Whitman, who chose not to go to battle would do nurse care.  By the 1900's nursing schools would not admit men, ,and and the Army and Navy Nurse Corps were limited to only women until after the Korean War.  In 2011, nationally, men made up about 9% of all nurses, and 9.6% of registered nurses.  For comparison, in 1970 men made up about 2.7% of registered nurses.

Florence Nightingale, setting the preferred demeanor of the nursing profession

There are of course, many types of nurses:  Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses, Nurse Practitioner's, and others.  What used to set nurses apart was their headgear.  Only those of us who are older remember nurses wearing white with their distinctive headgear.  A report of a hospital in Florida noted that many patients do not know if their attendant is a RN or an orderly.  In response, a cardiac unit had throw-back week where the nurses all wore white uniforms and their headgear.  The patients liked it and the nurses liked it.  My spouse is a nurse, and I don't think she even owns the headgear, and if she does she has refused to model it for me.

Nurse hats

What I wonder is if nurses have some sort of inferiority complex, always playing second fiddle to and carrying out the orders of doctors.  They are on the front lines of patient care, tending to the outputs of humans that would qualify as one of Mike Rowe's dirty jobs.  Not only do all nurses get a week, but May 8 of every year is National Student Nurse Day.  Is there a national history major day?  Nurses, like police and fire, have a powerful lobby group.  But, it does not end there.  International Nurses Day is on May 12.  But, yet they get even more specific.  The Wednesday during National Nurses Week, is National School Nurse Day.  This year, 2015, the kickoff of National Nurses Week, is also National School Nurse Day.  Talk about a week for partying, can you imagine a gaggle of nurses in their white gowns and hats having a beer at the local watering hole?  No probably not.  As noted, my spouse is a Nurse, and the party animal that she is, her idea of recognition is a thank you for pulling lice out of a child's hair.  With her as a school nurse, I do have a vested interest in National School Nurse Day.  Just this week she received some gifts.  The box of girl scout cookies she gave to me, and she is sharing some brownies and rhubarb crisp she received at work with me as well. There is only one other duty that surpasses that of nursing in my wife's mind, and that is being a Mom.

Nurse care in the  home

With National Nurses Week, National School Nurse Recognition Day, and Mother's Day all within a few days of each other my wife should be tired out of all the recognition she will be receiving.  Having a nurse as a mother has had its benefits, she was there to tend to our injured or ill children.  Or, more recently to get on their back if they have not seen a doctor for their badly sprained ankle, or have been ill for more than a few weeks.   On the other hand, when she does that, it is hard to tell if she is in "Nurse mode." or in "Mom mode."  Perhaps there is no difference.  If you get a chance, thank a nurse you know for all that they do.  I will be giving one a hug.