This is not necessarily a news article but I think an important item related to an ongoing discussion in the news and current events for nursing. There was a recent post by my good friend Kim McAllister over at the Emergiblog; you can find that at emergiblog.com. Kim was sending an open letter to the ANA, the American Nurses Association, asking them why they weren’t supporting the naming of the senior nurse in the health and human services department as the National Nurse for the United States, creating a position that really already exists according to Kim’s argument.
You know, we don’t have a national nurse in this country, other places do, Australia does, and there should be someone who is recognized as the senior nurse leader in our country. We have a senior nurse or a high level nurse that is the highest nurse in the health and human services department, the US public health service but what about the National Nurse? A real person, an office and a title associated with that. Kim has a great article on this, all the link in the shownotes. I urge you to check it out. Kim really draws some interesting points and just to let you know, she talks about the ANA definition of nursing and I’ve covered this here on the show before “Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, etc”. She points out that these are the very foundation of the National Nurse Act that is being brought up in congress and she wonders why the ANA is standing against this particular piece of legislation. I kind of like to know myself, what is it they have against the naming of a national nurse? I think I need to look in more carefully at this legislation but you can find the links to both legislation and to some interesting information from the ANA over at Kim’s site emergiblog.com.
———-
This article has been featured in the news segment of the Nursing Show podcast episode Patient Communication and Episode 142
