This year, National Skilled Nursing Care Week will be scheduled for May 9 – May 15, and National Nurses Week will roughly coincide with those dates, being set for May 6 – May 12. There is even a National Nurses Day which will take place on May 6th this year, and in Oxford and elsewhere around the country, we can observe all three of these celebrations to show our endless gratitude to those skilled medical professionals who have contributed so much to the health and well-being of our nation’s citizens. Virtually everyone in this country, including those under senior home care as well as those who are barely out of diapers, owes a debt of gratitude for the services provided by these dedicated medical professionals.
Nursing care is unconditional
Nurses don’t pick and choose which patients they want to help, and they don’t get mad at you and withhold services if you have insulted them. There is no question that some patients do get cranky and out of sorts, and that causes them to take it out on the individuals nearest them, which in most cases happens to be a nurse.
Regardless of how inconsiderate you are in your treatment of nurses, they’ll still come back to your room to check on you, and they’ll stick with you until your recovery is complete. That’s because for most nurses, it’s much more than a simple profession, and it actually involves caring about other people. In this day and age, that’s something of a rarity, and it’s a good reason for us to honor and respect these medical professionals.
They’re trained to deal with emergencies
If you’ve ever personally been involved with a medical emergency, you’ll know how critical it can be to have someone on hand who can keep a clear head and deal with the situation. You yourself might be undergoing something of a panic, but nurses have seen practically every kind of medical emergency in existence, and they take a practical approach to managing it. They also have the knowledge and the skill to effectively treat whatever your emergency condition is, and in some cases, this can be so crucial that it might actually save your life.
Nurses usually know when there’s a problem
Part of it is their training, and maybe there’s another part involving their intuition, but nurses can almost always sense when something’s wrong with you, and you need some kind of attention or treatment. Even better than that, when they realize that something isn’t quite right, they generally have a solution for the problem, and they can help you get back on track. Maybe nurses have an extra sense which tells them a patient isn’t feeling right or is having a bad day, but many of these skilled professionals seem to be almost clairvoyant in recognizing when a patient needs help.
They are self-sacrificing
In many cases, nurses will sacrifice their own needs and wants in favor of providing better patient care. It happens fairly routinely that hospital nurses are obliged to skip their meals in order to ensure that all their patients have received adequate care during their shift. They stay on call so that patient needs can be fulfilled, and so any necessary treatment can be delivered, even if that means they have to give up personal time. It’s no exaggeration to say that many of these healthcare professionals will consider the needs of patients even before their own.
They care about your health
Most of the time, nurses are with you from the time you get admitted into a hospital until the time you are released. In all those days in between, they are following your daily progress and monitoring your recovery to good health. That means they will suffer right along with you when you have a setback, and they can celebrate with you when you achieve a small victory.
They are genuinely interested in helping you to return to a state of wellness, and they will invest all their skills and knowledge to helping you achieve that state. For many people who have been involved in a serious accident or have undergone a serious illness, one of the most important factors in their recovery was the daily attention provided by their nurses. Without nurses, our world would be a much bleaker place, and healthcare could not be delivered anywhere near as efficiently as it is.
So, when the celebrations come about in May to show our appreciation of nurses, try to get involved in some way that truly expresses your own gratitude for these dedicated professionals. Whether you are a young person or a senior, you owe a debt of gratitude to nurses who have helped you either to recover from illness or to maintain your present state of well-being.