Positivity TM Power

When I graduated from nursing school in 1968, I donned my cap and became "team leader" and charge nurse on a 14 bed GYN unit. With 2 aides and 2 LPNs under me, I was also medication nurse. I poured pills from big jars into paper medicine cups with a separate little med card for every patient and every pill. We were so busy! We had up to 4 patients to care for and they all stayed 7 days. Still, we gave excellent care, which of course included a complete bed bath every day, soaking their feet in the basin water, then a nice long back rub. We read them their mail and took them for walks to the chapel. My charge nurse was really old - she had to be 50! She lovingly called me BRAT and I lovingly called her POSTEN - I made it up - it stood for Poor Old Sick and Tired Elderly Nurse. POSTEN went on and on about how they used to do things in the "good old days."

Now it's 2005 and I have several friends who are young nurses - really young - they have to be 30! And as I tell them about how we used to do things, I realize, I'm POSTEN! I'm that old nurse! And everything has changed.

But one thing hasn't changed, and that's the heart of a nurse - that calling, and I do believe it is a calling - to minister to people in their toughest times. That's why nurses don't quit to work someplace else for more money - there isn't enough money in the world to pay us for what we do. What an honor it is to literally touch and save lives!

To all nurses, who perhaps more than any other group on Earth, truly ease the suffering of the world. - dedication from Chicken Soup for the Nurse's Soul