Human beings have limits to their adaptive powers. Most nurses are aware that there is no value in watching a person die for lack of technology. Nor is there any value to have technology available only to keep someone alive and then rob him of the right to die with dignity. Nursing, more than any other profession, has strived to approach each human being as an integrated entity and consider the cultural differences of each patient, the customs and taboos, which are influential in that patient's experience. The purpose of setting aside a day to celebrate a particular profession is to remind the community of the contribution of the individual or the profession.
Nurses are key to the healthy functioning of any community.
The efforts of those nurses who have made this contribution should be honored. Ironically, this new conflict created within nursing occurs at a time when hospitals use nurses in their advertisements to create a kind of mass mythology that hospitals are caring places. She is the past-president of the Family Law Section of the Lehigh County Bar Association. E-mail this story to a friend.