Nurses are highly respected professionals — the annual Gallup poll has demonstrated this time and again. Since we nurses may not always be able or willing to verbalize our own importance and value, it is crucial for us to find ways to empower ourselves to own our expertise and acknowledge our central role within the healthcare industry.
We are legion
Nurses are indeed legion. Some will say we are the very backbone, lifeblood or mitochondria of healthcare. As we fulfill our duties, provide care for patients, collaborate with colleagues, and educate and uplift others, we can often directly see the fruits of our labors.
When a patient grasps a self-care technique we've taught him and performs a perfect return demonstration, we celebrate. When a successful helicopter flight delivers a critically injured motorist to the hospital for life-saving surgery, we acknowledge a job well done by the flight nurse and her team.
Nurses permeate society. From the halls of universities to the exam rooms of inner-city community health centers, nurses play irreplaceably crucial roles. We are everywhere, and our central place is undeniable.
Having said that, how do we remind ourselves of our strengths and gifts when the going gets tough?
Internalizing our value
When a nurse says, "I'm just a nurse," she is demeaning both herself and her profession. When a nurse is not willing to take ownership of his expertise, it diminishes his contributions and undermines his professionalism as a member of the team.
For nurses, positive self-talk is essential. Even as media stereotypes paint us as drug addicts, sex objects or simple handmaidens to physicians with no agency of our own, we can proactively counteract those messages with the words we feed ourselves and others in relation to who nurses are and what we're capable of.
Positive nurse self-talk takes ownership of our individual and collective actions. We nurses can remind ourselves of our contributions, internally recognizing the importance of our actions, experience and knowledge.
Nurses can refuse to use the word "just" prior to the word "nurse." Nurses can assert their own voices during multidisciplinary meetings, ensuring that other members of the team equate nurses' voices with the voices of others. We can also educate our neighbors, friends and family about nurses' roles and responsibilities.
Positive nurse self-talk means nurses internalize their own value, and then externalize that value through their interactions with both patients and colleagues.
Nursing agency
In this context, nursing "agency" means nursing action or intervention. Nursing agency is paramount for the execution of patient care, research and education. Nurses' autonomy of action and scope of practice has expanded exponentially over the decades, and we now enjoy a depth and breadth of practice far beyond that of nurses in previous centuries.
As nurses' individual and collective agency and autonomy expand, we are thus more empowered to own our contributions, elevate one another, embrace our roles, and take pride in the accomplishments and scope of our profession.
