Trending
ELKINS -- Today marks the beginning of National Nurses Week, which annually honors the contributions and sacrifices of nurses, and urges us to thank them for their devotion to their tasks.
National Nurses Week is celebrated each year between May 6, National Nurses Day, and May 12, the birthdate of the legendary nurse Florence Nightingale.
As workers who perform the most essential healthcare tasks, nurses serve as the first point of contact for most patients.
"I've often said: if there are angels in heaven, they're nurses," President Joe Biden said on the first day of National Nurses Week in 2021. "Nurses have given so much, and saved so many lives throughout the course of this pandemic."
In 2020, President Donald Trump commemorated nurses on the frontlines of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic with the first-ever presidential proclamation of May 6 as National Nurses Day.
"Every day, nurses provide quality, compassionate, and critical care to patients during both routine medical visits and in times of great vulnerability, fear, and uncertainty," Trump said. "Over the past weeks and months, as our nurses have worked heroically on the front lines of the coronavirus response, their contributions to the health and well-being of our citizenry have been exponentially magnified."
National Nurses Week was first observed from Oct. 11-16, 1954 in honor of the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale's mission to Crimea. President Richard Nixon later proclaimed a "National Nurse Week" in 1974.
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed a proposal officially designating May 6 as "National Recognition Day for Nurses," now known as National Nurses Day or National RN Recognition Day. In 1990, the American Nurses Association (ANA) expanded the holiday into the current National Nurses Week.
In 1997, at the request of the National Student Nurses' Association, the ANA designated May 8 as National Student Nurses Day. In 2003, the ANA designated the Wednesday within National Nurses Week as National School Nurse Day.
In conjunction with National Nurses Week, Nurse.com will be sponsoring giveaways for nursing professionals, publishing its 2022 Nursing Salary Report, and playing a significant role in the 2022 National Nurses March on May 12 in Washington, D.C.
Nurse.com is sponsoring several social media-based giveaways throughout the week, including Starbucks, UberEats, and Amazon gift cards, as well as a number of Nurse.com certification prep courses. In addition to these giveaways, today, Nurse.com will release its 2022 Nursing Salary Report, identifying and analyzing trends related to U.S. nurses' views of their jobs and satisfaction in their roles.
The report, which is based on a survey of over 2,500 nursing professionals, reveals a number of disparities and concerns in need of attention as the nursing workforce faces a growing shortage and ongoing challenges in the wake of the pandemic, and nursing professionals increasingly express their dissatisfaction and desire to leave their current roles.
"We're proud to celebrate nurses across the country and recognize the sacrifices they make in order to provide remarkable care to their patients each and every day," said Felicia Sadler, MJ, BSN, RN, CPHQ, LSSBB, and Nurse.com ambassador. "Nursing professionals are a crucial component of the healthcare workforce, and they should consistently feel recognized and appreciated, especially in light of the challenges they have endured in recent years."
The advent of modern nursing is credited to Florence Nightingale, who laid the foundation for professional nursing through her tireless work during and after the Crimean War. As a nursing manager on the frontlines, Nightingale introduced hygiene protocols and other measures that drastically reduced infections and deaths in battlefield hospitals.