By Brian Nambale
As we celebrate this year’s Nurses Week, 5th–12th May, a week that has two celebrations in it, with the International Day of the Midwife early and crowned by the International Nurses Day on the 12th, which also serves as a birthday for the late Florence Nightingale, mother of the modern nursing profession—many observational talks, rumors, experiences, and evidence surround nursing as a profession in our daily life. However, as a profession, it is one of the most respected, committed, noble, and organized jobs in the world of medicine.
Changing the narrative is a process in which evolving stories are told in and about a culture by centering and distributing accurate, empowering stories.
Years ago in nursing college, we grew up seeing our mentors in hospitals; the ward/unit matrons often staying as single mothers in the staff quarters, working to meet their duties and shifts while smart like angels, dressed in white from top to bottom.
In this outlook, we admire this smartness, but in crept in commitment and service. Nurses are not different from soldiers and war front commanders.
That’s why a fallen nurse is offered a Nightingale Tribute, because nursing is a calling, a lifestyle, a way of living. This gives them an honor of his/her life as a nurse because of the difference he/she made during those years by stepping into people’s lives… by special moments. Way back, we had statements from brother-field professions like “the Nightingale curse,” which meant that nurses have the unmarried DNA (genes) from their founder.
Briefly about F. Nightingale’s marriage life – She was never married despite receiving several proposals and declining them, especially from philanthropist and poet Richard Monckton Milnes. Even her desire to find a suitable husband and settle into a comfortable domestic life was affected by viewing nursing as a low-status profession.
She maintained strong relationships with both men and women, including Mary Clarke and Ada Lovelace. She dedicated her entire life to nursing while believing that her work was a divinely ordained calling and prioritized professional life above all else.
Modern traits of nurses in relationships & marriage, personal promiscuity is a matter of one’s mindset. The profession has nothing to do with it. So, my brothers and sisters, if you see a nurse and you both love each other, then please get married. Drop all these parochial myths.
Most of the divorced nurses are left out because they’re not understood; when you get married to a nurse, you’re married to the whole world.
When a young girl is bad, no matter what she turns out to become, she will always be bad. Try visiting family courts—you will find different professions: lawyers, teachers, farmers, doctors, soldiers, etc., filing for divorces. So it only depends on the person, not the profession.
Nevertheless, we have male nurses too—who speaks about them? Some friend of mine once commented on nurses not wanting to produce more children, giving statistics of about an average of two children with different fathers, in view that they possibly’ve access to all birth pills at their disposal. Yes, it could be, but it’s all personal.
Nurses are good wives and good mothers.
Happy Nurses Week.
About the Author:
Brian Nambale (Hon.), is an Independent Medical Writer, RCN, Palliative Care Student (MUK, HAU), Clinic Case Manager at Medicure Trauma Centre – Nabumali, Mbale, a District Councilor, Mbale District Local Government, Chairman Committee for Health, Education and Community-Based Services (Social Services)
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