NURSING VISIBILITY, THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, AND WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND THE NANDA – I CONFERENCE
It has been a recurring issue to talk about nursing visibility. During the recent celebration of Nurses’ week (or Day, depending on your country), rivers of ink and hundreds of voices have arisen to vindicate that nursing visibility has increased incredibly during this Covid-19 pandemic through which we are living.
It is very true – nobody can deny it at this point – that the suffering and the number of deaths would be much higher if it was not for the contribution of nurses. More than that, governments, health systems, and citizens recognize at a global level, more openly than ever, that this crisis would never have been solved without the contribution of professional nurses.
Nurses around the globe, in some places for the first time, have been part of the decision making, and citizens have realized how close these professionals are to their most important needs.
Some nurses have used the knowledge gained to improve the experiences of patients, and some of the experiences have been published and can be shared at local and international levels, becoming an important part of nursing knowledge to be used now and in the future.
Now, my question is: how much of this visibility will remain once the pandemic is resolved?
When the critical situation becomes a stable, balanced situation and the health system gets to study the records of what happened, will the unique, genuine contribution of nurses be recognizable?
Will the necessity of having nurses on their boards be recognized by the health systems, politicians, and the places where the decisions are made?
When the situation returns to normalcy, and all we have are the records by which we can analyze the contribution of nurses, will the analysts recognize our contribution, because nurses have used their own professional language -nursing diagnoses, interventions and outcomes – to record their own, genuine contribution?
Do you have any doubt about that? Did you think, as many nurses around the world did sometime during the pandemic, “I don’t know what nursing diagnosis I should use with my patients with Covid-19”? During this crisis, would you have liked to use nursing diagnoses, but found that you couldn’t because the situation was too critical to do so? Or, do you want to share experiences with colleagues around the world? In summary, if you want the visibility of nursing to remain after the pandemic….. you MUST attend the NANDA International Conference on June 16 and 17, 2021.
We look forward to seeing you there!!!
By: Carme Espinosa
President, NANDA-I