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Recognizing and Celebrating Nephrology Nursing
Beth
Ulrich, EdD, RN, CHE
We
are celebrating the First National Nephrology Nurses Week, September
11-17, 2005. For a number of years, ANNA has held an Annual Nephrology
Nurse Day Luncheon to recognize the work of ANNA nurses and chapters.
This has always been a wonderfully inspiring event, but the downside
has been that only those nurses in attendance at ANNA’s National
Symposium had the opportunity to enjoy it. To expand the recognition of
nephrology nurses and to celebrate nephrology nursing in a broader way,
the ANNA Board of Directors has established a Nephrology Nurses Week
that will be celebrated annually during the second full week in
September.
The
theme for the 2005 inaugural Nephrology Nurses Week is “Nephrology
Nurses: Caring for a Lifetime.” When you first read the theme, you
probably think about caring for patients throughout their lifetimes –
from the tiniest baby to oldest grandpa. Look again at the theme,
however, and you can see that caring for a lifetime can also mean the
lifetime of a nurse. Many nurses have “grown up” in nephrology,
providing caring at different levels and in different ways throughout
their own lifetimes. Where the lifetimes of our patients have
intersected the lifetimes of nephrology nurses, a wonderful tapestry
has been woven and we have all benefited!
Be Sure to Celebrate!
Nephrology
Nurses Week gives us the opportunity to celebrate nephrology nursing at
three levels: personally (amongst ourselves), professionally (with
colleagues), and publicly (with the general public). First, we need to
commit to take time out to do something. Nurses are a giving group but
we often are shy about tooting our own horns. Nephrology Nurses Week
gives us permission and, in fact, should mandate us to celebrate! Here
are some suggestions:
- On a personal level, take a few minutes to write down what you love about nephrology nursing.
- Next,
find a way to help your colleagues celebrate. Bring in snacks for a
break, make a sign for the unit, or have a coffee “toast” to each other
as you pass in the halls.
- Finally,
use Nephrology Nurses Week as a reason to tell others about our
specialty. Invite other nurses, student nurses, or faculty to tour your
unit. Set up a display in a hospital about nephrology nursing,
dialysis, transplantation, organ donation, etc.
Resources Available to
Nephrology Nurses
ANNA has put together a number of resources
to help celebrate Nephrology Nurses Week. A poster was included with
the May/June issue of the Nephrology Nursing Journal and it can also be
downloaded from the ANNA web site (www.annanurse.org). Also on the
website, you can find sample press releases for both chapters and
facilities to use; an article on nephrology nursing that can be
submitted to your organization’s in-house newsletter; the steps for
requesting a Nephrology Nurses Week proclamation from your mayor,
governor, or city/county council as well as a sample proclamation; and
sample letters that can be sent to your local print and television
media.
To
help you get started with your own list of what you love about
nephrology nursing and what you might include in some of your
celebration materials, we asked attendees at the ANNA National
Symposium in Las Vegas in April to tell us why they love nephrology
nursing. We had flip charts at the Nephrology Nursing Journal booth for
much of the meeting on which nurses could write about why they love
nephrology nursing, but the words really started flowing during the
Enrichment Opportunities Event. In a little over an hour, nephrology
nurses filled over 25 flip chart pages with statements about why they
love nephrology nursing! And while waiting in line to contribute
their thoughts in writing, many nurses were telling each other
wonderful, happy, inspiring, funny, and emotional anecdotes of their
nephrology nursing experiences. You could literally feel the joy in the
air. As you might expect, a number of common themes came though
loud and clear and made everyone think of more and more of their own
positive experiences. We hope that their statements (see pages
430 & 431) will stimulate each of you to think of your own reasons
for loving our specialty!
A Time to Remind Ourselves
Nephrology
Nurses Week should be a time when we all step back from the often-
hurried and stressful day-to-day pace to recognize the joy we feel in
our practice and the contributions of our colleagues and to celebrate
our pride in the specialty of nephrology nursing. We all celebrate
National Nurses Week every year to honor all that is good in the
nursing profession in general. Nephrology Nurses Week is a time for us
to remind ourselves of what makes our profession so special.
Beth Ulrich, EdD, RN, CHE
Editor
E-mail: BethUlrich@aol.com
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