Happy National Nurses Week! As we celebrate National Nurses Week, May 6–12, 2024, please take a moment to enjoy any offerings for you either from your unit, your organization, or in the community. At AMSN, we will be celebrating as well. Even though we have our own Medical-Surgical Nurses Week, Nov. 1–7 annually, we like taking the time to recognize all nurses during National Nurses Week!
Often during Nurses Week, I reflect on the past year and think about all the great nurses I have met either through AMSN, the ANA Commission to Address Racism in Nursing, at different conferences, and during my workday. Each one of us has an impact on patients in one way or another. In my current role, I do not directly care for patients, but I am able to connect grateful patients with nurses, and this is one of the best parts of my role. Recently, we had a family who has donated funds to nursing education through an award, and they came into the hospital to meet the nurse recipient and talk about why they give, what giving means to them, and how glad they are that the funds are being used as intended — for the nurses!
For AMSN, one of the best parts of my role as president is meeting with medical-surgical nursing care units to personally award the PRISM Award. The AMSN and MSNCB PRISM Award stands for Premier Recognition in the Specialty of Medical-Surgical. It was created for medical-surgical nurses by medical-surgical nurses. It recognizes units that are excelling in multiple areas around patient care and staff engagement. I was able to have a meeting last week to recognize two nursing units at Yale New Haven Hospital, in Connecticut, with the PRISM Award. You could hear the excitement, the energy, and how proud everyone was to be recognized nationally as outstanding medical-surgical units and teams. Being able to recognize these two PRISM Award units right before National Nurses Week (hopefully) gave them something extra special to celebrate this year. Learn more about the PRISM Award on the AMSN website.
In addition to National Nurses Week, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. As nurses, we often have patients who are experiencing a wide variety of mental illness. Some are diagnosed and treated, and many are not. It is important to take a moment to understand the resources that are available to our patients, even if it is not the primary reason they came into our unit or clinic. (One of my favorite resources is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI.) Being able to discuss mental illness with our patients is necessary, and sometimes overlooked, in our busy medical-surgical settings. Some of our units see mental illness all too often, as the landscape of psychiatric services is changing. Helping to remove the stigma associated with mental illness and its treatment options can help individuals get help sooner, which improves their health outcomes.
As we celebrate National Nurses Week, take time to celebrate you, the nurse you are today, and all your nursing colleagues. We all deserve a moment of recognition for the exceptional work we do day in and day out for our patients and our nursing community.