Next Move News//March 26, 2021

Celebrating Nurses Week – 2021

Next Move Celebrates National Nursing Week
May 6 – May 12, 2021

Nurses Week 2021- There’s no denying that since the pandemic hit early last year, honoring our nation’s nurses is profoundly more significant than it ever has been before, which makes this year’s National Nursing Week, that much more important. Be it a national health emergency or just routing daily care, we here at Next Move Inc. recognize nurses’ vital contributions and the impact they have on the health and well-being of our communities.

Since 1993 we, along with communities around the world, have been celebrating National Nurses week, every 2^nd week of May in honor of Florence Nightingale’s birthday, which falls on May 12^th, and to acknowledge, bring attention to and appreciate the enormous contributions nurses (registered nurses, nurse practitioners, LPNs, LVNs, NAs and others) make across this great country.

Nurses Week 2021 – Acknowledging the Contributions & Sacrifices Nurses Made in 2020

Last year, was a year unlike any other for nurses around the world, nurses who were asked to make huge sacrifices in order to combat the deadly COVID-19 virus. For people around the world, lives changed in an instant – but especially for nurses who were asked to risk their lives and join the frontlines of the fight against this pandemic. Many of those nurses, lost their own lives in the fight to save others and no number of words or gestures of gratitude could possibly express the sorrow we feel for their loss. But what we can do is to show our gratitude by bringing light to the extremely hard-work, and dedication required for their profession, and the selflessness nurses bring to healthcare institutions.

We also recognize that the fight isn’t over, as thousands of nurses across the country are still fighting the COVID-19 virus and struggling to care for a population devastated by the effects of this pandemic. While hope is on the way – in the form of a multitude of various vaccines – it’s important to acknowledge that there are still nurses on the frontline – doing everything they can to care for the ill and ailing.

Nurses Week 2021 – Why Next Move Celebrates Nurses Week

Each and every person that chooses a nursing career does so, in part, to improve the health and prosperity of their communities. Nurses will face many challenges on this journey, throughout their career, from physical to emotional to mental, but despite those challenges, will continue to put one foot in front of the other, face those challenges head on, and continue to give the best care possible to all their patients.

While 2020 was a tough year for nurses, we have high hopes for 2021. A year to celebrate and reflect on the dedication of nurses, the challenges they survived, and to share with the world what nurses are truly capable of.

Nurses Week 2021 – The Year Things Change

While the vaccine is on the way, and we finally see the light at the end of the dreaded COVID-19 tunnel, there is a lot we as humans, and especially as nurses, have learned along the way. One of the most important being the demonstration of how important self-care is. Nurse-burnout is very real and the neglect of personal needs can no longer be the norm – no matter how much social media glamorizes overworking and/or focuses on the heroic acts of nurses without acknowledging the personal sacrifices made– you can still be a hero and need a 3-week vacation, or just a few days off to soak in a spa somewhere, or even just one day off to pour some bubbles into your bath and enjoy a glass of champagne.

The importance of self-care is what 2020 taught us and a lesson we’ll take into 2021 and beyond.

As such, we recognize the importance, and the core value nurses provide to healthcare across this country, and we do our part to honor that importance by connecting nurses with travel nursing assignments that offer them just the right number of hours, pay, and time-off.

Nurses Week 2021 – How Can you Celebrate Nurses Week with Us?

Share with others on social media about the diversity of your specialty and your nursing story. Try using the following hashtags: #Nurses2021 #NurseStrong #NationalNursingWeek #NurseLife #NextMoveNurses
Post of a picture of you and your fellow nurses on social media
Write a thank-you note to your fellow nurses letting them know how you appreciate all their hard-work and dedication to the field of nursing.
Ask patients/residents to sign thank you cards for nurses. Then, distribute the cards along with gifts of appreciation on the first day of the week.

Nurses Week 2021 – Nursing Celebrations Throughout the Year

While Nurses Week (which falls on Thursday May 6^th through Wednesday, May 12^th this year), is meant to celebrate all nurses around the world there are several days throughout the year designed to acknowledge all the different professions and specialties. Some of which include:

January

National CRNA Week January 24-30
IV Nurse Day January 25

February

PeriAnesthesia Nurse Awareness Week February 1-7
Critical Care Transport Nurses Day February 18

March

Certified Nurses Day March 19

April

Wound, Ostomy and Continence (WOC) Nurse Week April 11-17

May

Oncology Nursing Month all month
National Nurses Week May 6-12
National Nurses Day May 6
National Student Nurses Day May 8
International Nurses Day May 12
National School Nurse Day  May 12 (always the Wednesday of NNW)
National Skilled Nursing Care Week (NSNCW) May 9-15
Neuroscience Nurses Week  May 9-15

September

National Clinical Nurse Specialist Recognition Week September 1-7
National Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses Day September 8
Nephrology Nurses Week September 12-18
Nursing Professional Development Week September 12-18
Neonatal Nurses Week September 13-19

October

National Midwifery Week October 3-9

November

Medical-Surgical Nurses Week November 1-7
National Clinical Nurse Specialist Recognition Week November 1-7
Urology Nurses and Associates Week November 1-7
Forensic Nurses Week November 9-13 (2020)
National Nurse Practitioner Week November 7-13

Nurses Week 2021 – A Brief History of Nurses Week

Back in 1953 a woman by the name of Dorothy Sutherland of the U.S. Depart of Health, Education & Welfare made a proposal to President Eisenhower to name a day in October (of the following year) “Nurse Day”. The proclamation was never made. However, in 1954 National Nurse Week was observed from October 11-16, marking the 100^th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s mission to Crimea (more on that below).

No movement on this issue was made again, until almost twenty years later. In 1972, a resolution was presented to the President by the House of Representatives to proclaim, “National Registered Nurse Day.” He declined to do so.

Two years later, in 1974 the International Council of Nurses proclaimed that May 12 would be “International Nurse Day”, in observance of Florence Nightingale. That same year, President Nixon issued a proclamation to designate a week as “National Nurse Week.”

Several years later, in 1981, the American Nurses Association (ANA) successfully sought government support a presidential proclamation to have May 6, 1982 established as “National Recognition Day for Nurses”.

Nine years later, in 1990, ANA expanded the recognition of nurses to a week-long celebration declaring May 6 – 12, 1991 as National Nurses Week. In 1993, ANA designated May 6-12 as the permanent dates to observe National Nurses Week. In 1996, ANA designated May 6 as “National RN Recognition Day”.

Nurses Week 2021 – A Brief History of Florence Nightingale

You’ll never meet a nurse who won’t be able to give you at least a brief history of Florence Nightingale, but in case you’re not familiar of Florence Nightingale’s role in the history of Nursing, here you go:

Florence Nightingale, named for the city of her birth, was born to a wealthy British family in Italy. She first stepped onto the scene of nursing in 1854 when she arrived with a team of 38 volunteer nurses and 15 nuns at a military barracks in Istanbul to care for soldiers hurt fighting in the Crimean War. In despair over the conditions of the camp she wrote to The Times newspaper and shortly thereafter the British government set up a new hospital which had a 90% lower fatalities as compared to military barracks Nightingale first came up. It was at this time Nightingale earned her nickname from a phrase in The Times article that read:

“When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand,
making her solitary rounds.”

Not giving up there, in 1858 Nightingale created the “Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army of the East” which demonstrated how the spread of disease and unsanitary conditions lead to more deaths than battlefield wounds. Today the same diagram is used and currently termed the “Rose Diagram”. Nurses Week 2021

For her efforts and beliefs in the power of good data as essential to understanding the impact and effectiveness of healthcare and sanitary provisions, Nightingale was the first woman to be admitted to the Royal Statistical Society in 1858.

Using money she raised independently, Nightingale opened a nurse training in school in London in 1860. Graduates were called “Nightingales” and in 1999 the school was renamed the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery.

In 1893, the Florence Nightingale Pledge was created and is currently used at graduation ceremonies of nurses across the country.