National Nurses Week
National Nurses Week is a celebration that has been running in the United States for over fifty years. It will return in 2018 for the week beginning May 6. Does your workplace have any plans to celebrate?
Below, we explain what National Nurses Week is, how it is celebrated and why you should consider running some sort of event to commemorate it.
What is National Nurses Week?
It is organized by the American Nursing Association. Typically, National Nurses Week celebrations are held all over the United States to honor and appreciate the work of nurses throughout the past year.
They are observances but not public holidays, so the majority of events take place in healthcare-based workplaces.
Among the events are banquets, city and state proclamations, seminars and webinars. It is common for nurses to receive thank-you cards gifts from patients—or even from friends and family members.
In fact, you can personalize and download your own thank you card from nursingworld.org. This website has a complete toolkit to help people celebrate this day.
Each year National Nursing Week has its own unique theme to help people celebrate a different element of this complex career.
Last year, for example, the theme was “Nursing: The Balance of Mind, Body, and Spirit.”
This year the theme is: “Nurses: Inspire, Innovate and Influence”.
Useful seminars for nursing
If you work as a nurse, make sure to not only savor in the gratitude but also to take advantage of any useful educational seminars taking place.
Whether they’re working in private duty home care in Chesterfield or an accident and emergency department in Macomb, these seminars typically help nurses to:
- network and make useful connections;
- learn from some of the most experienced professionals in their field;
- build confidence in learning the solution to difficult everyday situations;
- learn techniques to beat compassion fatigue and other compassion problems.
Certainly, the ‘Inspire, Innovate and Influence’ theme could help a lot of nurses learn more about communication with patients and colleagues, regardless of whether they work within a hospital in Manchester or private duty home care in Macomb.
Any opportunities to encourage innovation should always be welcomed too.
History of National Nurses Week
The final day of National Nurses Week traditionally falls on May 12. That’s the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the English nurse most famous for her working dreaming the Crimean War (1853–1856) where she would famously make rounds a night with a lamp. She lived from 1820 until 1910 and is known to many as the founder of modern nursing.
The first day of National Nurses Week (May 6) is known as National Nurses Day and the majority of events take place on this day. Why not get involved with one or organize one yourself?