What The Nurses’ Week Means To Us: My Unwelcoming Arguments On Preserving What Defines Us | 2 Minutes Reading Time

This Nurses’ week, I will be writing a series of fresh blog posts about Nursing (I will include some personal stuff – this is blogging, so I am permitted to be very personal, and I love it, yippee!). And I will also include links to some of our older blogs. 

I have also decided to include links to blogs, websites & online businesses owned by Nurses in our blog posts throughout this week. So if you are a Nurse, who owns an online business, website, or blog, send me a direct mail here, or let’s interact on Twitter. 

This particular blog post is a form of introduction to this series of “Nurses’ Week Articles.”  

I hope you enjoy them; I hope you get inspired by them to do more. I hope that these articles add a little fuel to the flames burning in your heart. 

I could have studied to become a Medical Doctor, or Pharmacist, or a Computer Scientist. But I found myself in the weird world of Nursing. And it has taken me some years to realize what my role is here (and I am still discovering). And I have dedicated a lot of my writing efforts to helping Nurses understand their roles in the unique world of Nursing. 

It has been an adventure thus far, as I have come across many impediments & imperfections that have made my journey tough, and at the same time, ironically made the journey exciting.

Exciting, you say? Yes, exciting in the sense that I am forced to ask myself questions, like; why does this profession have these unique challenges? Why do we have very few Nurses Challenging the status quo? What in the world is such an idea or philosophy doing in a modern profession like this? And the questions are never-ending.

Answering these questions has formed my philosophy of what Nursing should be and what it should not be. You may not agree with all that I believe, but I know you will understand my arguments, and maybe be bullied into agreeing with me. 

This week, I will write more about what I think Nursing should be. It’s not academic writing, so I am permitted to break rules, fix in my own thoughts, and don’t care if I make no references to anyone (though I might if I feel like). 

What is the Nurses’ week to you? Another celebration? Another moment to upload pictures or videos of Nurses dancing, wearing scrubs, and choreographing all the way? Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of all the celebrations and colors, but deep down, I wish we see more to it. 

I wish we see this week, as an opportunity for the family of Nurses worldwide to come together and meditate on all the virtues that makes us who we are – NURSES, strengthening the bond.

We may be becoming more advance, more scientific in our approach to care. We may now be having more Nurses who are earning advanced degrees – Doctorate In Nursing, Doctors of Nursing Practice, beautiful scholars sprouting from the fertile soils, digitally prepared Nursing Professionals, and all the welcoming & exciting developments that we see all around us.

I want these, I desperately do. But I also want us to hold dear to our hearts the things that make us who we are. 

I don’t want us to get to a developmental professional phase globally as Nurses, where we become so advanced, that we forget the very basic & simple things that define us.

Not to allow the ugly hubris consuming some other professions in the medical field, find its way through the high

walls that we have constructed for ourselves over the years… (to be continued)…

EVENTS

Many of you know that I am the present Editor at the Institute of Nursing Research, Nigeria. I have been an old boy of the institute, and we are celebrating the Nurses’ Week in a very special way, by bringing to us, free, a highly valued Nursing Career Summit Webinar.

We have special speakers from all over the world converging to share their adventures with you. It’s going to be three days of learning, sharing, connecting & growing. I know you do not want to miss this rare opportunity.

Check the banner above for more details, you can also check this article we wrote on INR’s Blog about the summit, and here is a direct registration link.

I would love to meet you there!