This is my startling message…
Your ability to be the caring nurse you want and need to be is up to you.
What healthcare needs, basically, is a whole new operating system driven by caring and healing,
a Holistic Operating System.
And that is not going to be happening soon.
Actually the task of transforming the healthcare system into a caring healing entity in our lifetime is impossible.
There’s not one nurse, nurse leader, or nurse thought leader who would refute this statement.
Believing what you observe and experience as a nurse about what is happening in healthcare today cannot help but lead to a deep sense of pessimism. And if you are not pessimistic about this,
You Are Not Engaged Or Listening.
This is a heart and mind-boggling situation.
Yet, if you meet the nurses who are working to restore their own nurse souls and those of others, and you don’t feel optimistic,
You Haven’t Got a Pulse.
Nurses are 3 million strong in the US and 19 million worldwide.
Jean Watson developed a ‘caring healing operating system’ and she has been offering it to the world, literally, for 30 years. It’s Caring Science, which she formulated and birthed in her Caring Healing Theory starting in 1979. It has been deeply and widely researched since, and is now the nursing theory used by many nurses, schools and organizations. You can access this deep inspiring work at CU Watson Science Center and Watson Caring Science Institute.
There is a golden age for healthcare coming.
This transition is slow, but real. It will change healthcare further and reach a tipping point. As societal and individual consciousness grow, nurses’ caring will gain more meaning and impact on patients’ care experiences and sense of wellbeing. This societal change is already changing healthcare, and in the direction of nursing’s domain. This growing consciousness of wellness provides an opening to higher level caring. It invites nurses and nurse leaders to lead organizations into an expanded development of caring.
Humanity is coalescing around wellness, to deeper connections and relationships where wellness is nurtured. This may not be evident where you work as yet, but it is evident in your communities, even as a spark at this point.
If you undertake the challenge of restoring your nurse self,
You join a multitude of other caring nurses working to restore themselves.
“Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, …. ”
(Hawken)
Hawken P. Commencement: Healing or Stealing? University of Portland, 2009. http://www.up.edu ›Commencement. Accessed August, 2016.