Bakersfield Life

In Nurses We Trust

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National Nurses Week begins each year on May 6 and ends on May 12, Florence Nightingale’s birthday.
For more than a century, Florence Nightingale has been a symbol of the nursing profession, but her white cap and pinafore apron, which resembled a nun’s habit, hardly represents the industrious nurses of the 21st century.
To the contrary, nursing in 2009 is far different from Nightingale’s day. Dressed in scrubs and working grueling 12-hour shifts, nursing is not for the weak or uncommitted. It takes perseverance and education. According to the Center for Nursing Advocacy, “nurses are educated by nursing scholars typically in nursing degree programs lasting two or four years at universities and colleges, using textbooks authored by those scholars, many of whom are at the forefront of health care research. About 10,000 U.S. nurses have Ph.D.s in nursing (another 10,000 nurses have Ph.D.s in other health-related fields and work in nursing), and close to 380,000 U.S. nurses have master’s degrees in nursing.”
Very un-Florence like.
So, with a tip of the hat to honor their dedication and commitment to their profession, the heads of some local hospitals would like to explain what their nurses mean to them.

Russell Judd
CEO / President, Mercy Hospitals

Describing exactly what the nurses that are part of the Mercy family mean to us is no easy task. Their role is so vital, not only to the clinical outcome but also to how our patients feel about the time they spend with us.
It takes an extraordinary person to be a nurse. Nurses are at the bedside through some of the biggest milestones in our patients’ lives. When someone thinks back to the birth of their child, the people that were part of that experience are forever part of that memory, and our team knows that. And they do a great job — not just because it is expected, but because they want to.
Taking care of the patients who choose Mercy Hospitals is more than just a job to our nurses, this is their calling. That passion is something I hear reflected in the stories that they tell of their experiences with patients — those milestone moments really do work both ways. Our patients are part of the memories our nurses carry with them just as often as nurses remain in the hearts of patients.  
We all know that being a nurse requires specific knowledge and abilities. But if being a nurse were just about completing the necessary course work, our hospital would be a very different place. Being a nurse is as much about character as it is about knowledge. I believe it’s the character of Mercy’s nurses that help to make our hospital what it is today.