National Nurses Week begins each year on May 6th and ends on May 12th, Florence Nightingale's birthday. These permanent dates enhance planning and position National Nurses Week as an established recognition event. As of 1998, May 8 was designated as National Student Nurses Day, to be celebrated annually. And as of 2003, National School Nurse Day is celebrated on the Wednesday within National Nurses Week (May 6-12) each year.1
Florence Nightingale is credited with modern nursing theory and the development of nursing schools;2 however, nursing did not begin with Florence Nightingale. The nurse historian Josephine Dolan said, “Even after nineteen hundred years it is difficult to fully comprehend the impact of the birth of Jesus Christ and His teaching on society and the care of the sick.”3
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved, you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn.13:34-35) Jesus Christ is Lord, as Christian nurses we are our patients bond-servants for Jesus sake. (cf. 2 Cor. 4:5)
Nursing did not begin as a Highly-Structured•Technical•Reimbursement-Driven system. Nor did it begin with Florence Nightingale's Care Model. Nursing came forth from the Law of Christ. Therefore, during this year’s nurse’s week, I encourage my fellow nurses to reflect on the profession of nursing as a follower of Jesus Christ and not these other things.
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:16-18)
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1 "National Nurses Week History," ANA, accessed May 09, 2018, https://www.nursingworld.org/education-events/national-nurses-week/nnw-history/.
2 Betty R. Ferrell and Nessa Coyle, The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Nursing (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2008), 6.
3 Hutchison, Margaret Hutchison, Nursing Yesterday and Today, accessed May 9, 2018, http://www.ncfansw.org/nursing-yesterday-and-today/
