I’ve been struggling with the increasing number of nurses speaking up, some shouting, about the inequities in their workplace compared to other professions. Struggling because yes, COVID brought out the weak underbelly of corporate healthcare AND also struggling because this is a profession in which there are over a hundred types of nursing jobs you can do and there are nurses who are basking in the glory of standing on a pedestal in righteous indignation.
I’m not going to gain any nurse bloggers by this next paragraph, but I have to type it.
Nursing is not a job for anyone who is always assessing whether they are being taken care of, who might have had a little too much narcissism handed to them at birth, or who needs to make sure that they stand out.
I never know how to wrap my thoughts up in a way that extends beyond Nursing, a way to morph my musing in a way that doesn’t sound like I too am being a little self-righteous in my own way.
Maybe I am. Maybe I wear my humility on my sleeve at work. But then, I’m not laying in the stretcher heading into surgery….
And just when I was going to give up on figuring it out, someone I care much about just happen to share a book they were reading by Akiko Busch titled Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency. This highlighted passage was sent to me during a recent call between us:
‘ …the measure of our humanity my be derived not from how we stand out in the world, but from the grace and concord in which we find our place in it.’
Websters: Humanity – the practice of being humane, kindness, benevolence; the quality or condition of being human.
This author speaks of belonging and clarifies the difference between belonging and fitting in.
It’s been added to my To Read list.
What’s on yours?
Don't Curse the Nurse! 
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