Setting the stage

My first image of a nurse is still vividly and indelibly stamped in my mind. Her spotless white uniform was starched and pressed. The cap that identified her as a graduate of Bayonne Hospital School of Nursing was perfectly positioned on her head. Her navy-blue cape flowed in the breeze as she explained to me that she had to go to the park without me because, in case there was a disaster, she needed to practice helping people. I was 4 years old, and that nurse was my mother. The year was 1964.

Shortly afterward, we moved from Bayonne, New Jersey, to Miami, Florida, and my mother, who was single, did what many nurses do. To provide for her family, she took a good job that was available instead of the dream job she had hoped for. But she fell in love with long-term care and has been involved with it one way or another ever since. I recall pulling medical records—charts in those days—around in my little red wagon to the various facilities she worked at, doing my best to help.

As I grew older, she advanced in the profession. To expose me to the many facets of health care, she encouraged me to volunteer and assisted me in attaining, first, volunteer positions and then paid positions such as “transporter.” As with many nurses who had sons, she hoped I would one day consider being a physician.

As a teenager, I was scared to death by the thought of spending that much time in school. So, I took the passion for health care and helping people she had instilled in me and worked as an ER tech while becoming a firefighter paramedic. I loved my work but, after several years, the 24-hour shifts became daunting, and I decided it was time to go back to school and explore other professions.

I was standing in line to register for business classes when the thought struck me like a .45 slug to the back of the head: I did have a gift, and it wasn’t playing the guitar. It was being able to hold down my lunch and be compassionate in situations that would send some people running in another direction, screaming for help. I also realized that I had honed skills that should not be squandered. So, I registered for prenursing courses and have never looked back.

I’m sharing this story as my first blog post so that you know I have been close to health care and nursing all my life and am extremely passionate about both. A great deal has changed since that image of a professional nurse was imprinted in my mind. Some has been for good, some not so much. And, as we are all acutely aware, there is a lot more change ahead.

There are hundreds of blogs out there you could spend your most valuable asset—time—reading. I could write a similar talking-head blog, but I don’t believe the profession needs another. What is needed is respectful discourse about the topics of our time, and I hope this blog will be a catalyst for that. If you agree, let me know by posting a comment. If not, then don’t, and that will be my indication that I need go no further or that I need to find a different forum to stimulate conversation in hopes of positively impacting health care, nursing, and the population we serve.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.