This fall, our organization will unite under the theme "Aspire to Excellence." Ten years ago, in San Diego, we met under the theme "A Challenge to Care." In the intervening years, we have matured as a nursing specialty, healthcare delivery systems have changed (for better or worse), and technology, including communication, has moved forward at breakneck speed. In this same interim, as a nation and as a global world, we have, yet again, lost our innocence and some might even say our hope.
Simple names of places like Kosovo, the New York Trade Center, Banda Ache, Columbine, Tikrit, Gaza, Port Au Prince, Landenstuhl, Darfur, La Conchita, and the homeless shelters and housing projects of our own hometowns and cities remind us that we live in a world and a time where violence, poverty, disease, disfigurement, racism, natural disasters, and hopelessness are numbing, daily headlines. Thus, it seems more than timely to bridge our challenge to care with our aspirations for excellence.
It is in this spirit that this issue is presented. Rather than the usual academic and educational offerings, this is a collection of thoughts and stories by our colleagues and friends who, when presented with opportunities and challenges to care, acted upon them. We all know we can't "make time," but these people and thousands like them "take time" by reorganizing priorities. Their random and collective acts of kindness rarely make headlines, but then headlines don't heal and servants don't seek medals.
In his acceptance speech as the Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 1952, Dr. Albert Schweitzer said, "All people, even the semicivilized and the primitive are, as beings capable of compassion, able to develop a humanitarian spirit. It abides within them like tinder ready to be lit, waiting only for a spark." And so, for many of you, this issue is a heartfelt thank you, even a headline, and for others, perhaps a spark!!
Because I work in an environment surrounded by engineers, the first request for any proposal is "show me the data." In the last editorial of PSN, Editor Kathleen Spencer challenged each of our 1,700 ASPSN members to recruit one new member, thereby increasing our membership to 3,400. Just imagine then if these 3,400 members each volunteered just two eight-hour days each year, providing free care to the underserved. That would be the equivalent of approximately 18.6 years of full-time service. Imagine the challenges met and the hope restored by that effort.
The problem with data is that it doesn't tell the whole story. While the risk of a certain surgical procedure may be documented to be 1%, if you suffer that risk, the risk to you becomes 100%. The reverse is true for volunteer efforts. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Elie Wiesel said, "The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world." A good friend of mine who volunteers each week at a shelter for battered women recently received the following letter:
Debra,
Nothing can ever compare, when you meet someone and know
without a doubt that they "really" do care.
I've only just met you but I know and understand
The loving kindness shown to man.
Times are so stressfull, so whenever you meet
Someone with "true" compassion, who don't treat you like a dog in the street,
You appreciate how rare a gift
and the truth is, this!! It gives ones soul a lift!!
A lift that still says you can make it
because the love is real and the person didn't fake it!!
So I say thank you for being so kind and unsparing
And for having so much love in your heart you don't mind sharing!!
Somehow it matters more than the pains of the night before
When someone got punched or their face met the door
It matters when it seems like everyone else only cares for themselves.
Your love isn't at all past tense
It's radiantly real and Heaven sent!!
The Residents
No, this poem would never make a headline even if the punctuation was corrected, but for a few homeless and beaten women on a dark and lonely night, it shows how one volunteer gave light and hope. One volunteer made a difference. So much for data.
As we continue to learn and work in a shrinking profession plagued by understaffing, an aging workforce, and burnout, consider why you chose this profession in the first place. Was it to offer skilled and compassionate care and hope to those entrusted to your service? Maybe one antidote to the "nursing crisis" is to get nurses back to basics. Kids are still born with deformities that make them the lepers of the twenty-first century, people still die of malnutrition and parasites, toddlers are crippled by burn scars, congenital cataracts mean a lifetime of blindness for many, and people succumb to strep infections because they can't afford $2.00 worth of antibiotics, while others die dirty, alone, and in pain. None of these problems require high-tech or expensive care. They do require access to care.
In September 2005, we will meet in Chicago to move forward on an aggressive strategic plan, developed for us by our all volunteer Executive Board, and to Aspire to Excellence through education, exchange of information, and scientific inquiry. Until then, Elie Weisel again reminds us that "mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other." This reminder was not and probably never will be newsworthy, but just maybe, in Chicago in September, we can all accept a new challenge to care and pause for a moment to share the gifts of peace.