This year, National Nurses Week celebrates quality and innovation in the nursing profession1.National Nurses Week comes each May and gives us an opportunity not only to celebrate nurses and the important work they do, but also to welcome New Graduate Nurses into the nursing world!
Quality and innovation are hallmarks of great nursing, and the foundations for both begin in nursing school. As educators we strive to give students the tools to learn well, do excellent work and to be critical thinkers. Critical thinking is truly the cornerstone of the process of innovation. Whether it surfaces when a student establishes best practices for learning, retention and success on tests, or when a student solves a patient dilemma or discovers a system-fix that can help efficiency in a health-care setting, well-developed critical thinking shows that nursing students are on their way to becoming excellent nurses.
We honor our student nurses with a special National Student Nurse Day on May 8th as part of the week-long festivities. (Please check the Kaplan website for a special offer for student nurses), and we at Kaplan honor the nurse educators for the quality and innovation they provide in the classroom to nursing students.
No reference to National Nurses Week would be complete without remembering the pledge in honor of Florence Nightingale who started it all…
I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.2
Happy National Nurses Week!
1http://nursingworld.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/AboutANA/NationalNursesWeek/Delivering-Quality-and-Innovation-in-Patient-Care.html
2http://nursingworld.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/AboutANA/NationalNursesWeek/MediaKit/FlorenceNightingalePledge.html
