Established by the American Nurses Association to coincide with Florence Nightingale’s birthday, National Nurses Week is a time to recognize the strength, commitment, and compassion our nurses provide all year long to patients and their caregivers.

Nursing is more than a profession; it is a calling. Under any circumstance, our nurses find a way to give a bit of themselves to every patient in their care.  A single week is not enough time to acknowledge how important and appreciated our nurses are, but it gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect and to say “thank you” for the daily contributions of these dedicated professionals who are at the heart of patient care day in and day out, 52 weeks a year.

Please take time this week to thank those nurses in your life. Exceptional people choose to be nurses. Theirs is a rewarding profession, intellectually challenging and physically demanding. We honor and appreciate our nurses who accept these challenges daily.

For your dedication and commitment we say thank you!

Two of our managers had some great things to say…

Dana Greenwood, RN, is the nurse manager at our Pediatric & Adolescent Care Center, downtown in Methodist Tower:

HealthNet is an organization that is closely connected to our mission. I have never worked with a more supportive team of caregivers, who are here to serve our patients and the communities in which they live. In our pediatrics clinic, the nurses are some of our brightest stars.  They are role models to their peers and spend countless hours providing care to our patients through additional telephonic consultation and follow-up from routinely scheduled appointments.  I am thankful to work with them each and every day!

Working at a community health center is often challenging, but also very rewarding at the same time. Our patients are often very sick and in great need of assistance.  We focus our treatment on the whole person, not just their immediate crisis. What I find most rewarding, is that our patients and their families return to us for care.

Joyce Neal, RN, BSN, is the shift coordinator at our Eastside Health Center, on the Far Eastside at 38^th & Post Rd:

I believe without a doubt that working in a community health center, serving the underserved and special needs population, is one of the most rewarding nursing jobs one could have. We as nurses, have an opportunity to make very difficult circumstances just a bit more bearable by very simple acts. Special thanks to my Nurse Manager René Kougel and my Triage/Charge Nurse Maritza Johnson. YOU GUYS ROCK! 

Are you a nurse in a community health center?  Do you know someone who is a nurse at a community health center?  Share a story or a kind word of thanks in the comments section below!