May 12th is International Nursing day. We can never honor and cherish, praise and embrace and value the work of nurses too much.
Let me be frank and open right here: I wanted to be a nurse!
Our family business, however, in my early education steered my into automotive for 2 years, to return right after back into healthcare again in our ambulance services for the next 25+ years. After that into several roles at Radboud University Medical Center and now at Deloitte’s Center for the edge on digital health. I have always been collaborating with my colleagues and aiding patients in my own way. Some improve healthcare by being a doctor, some as a researcher, others by becoming ‘quality-ninjas’.
During my entire career, I have been proud of what our doctors can do and how they can fix health by delivering healthcare to their utmost possibilities.
Having said that; I also have a deep respect for all nurses that on a daily basis find ways to 'innovate' to improve the care they serve to us, patients. Click to Tweet
Like when I suffered from kidney stones (again) in 2017 as described in this post I wrote.My role was and is showing possibilities, opportunities to improve the life and health of people, in my case with the help of innovation. The role of nurses is crucial in this and I respectfully try to emphasize their role wherever and whenever I can. At some point, some ‘friends’ tricked me into a ‘lecture-in-disguise” and afterward ‘promoting me “friend of nursing” of Rho Chi-at-Large chapter. Then in 2017 officially promoting me -by decision of the board of Sigma Theta Tau International- to: ‘International Ambassador of Nursing” …for his continuous work at Global level positioning nurses also at the forefront of innovation…”, as the first NON-nurse ever.
All of this in the notion that I will keep doing whatever I can to facilitate also nurses on whatever is within my power or ability to make the difference in the life of people through nurses. That is also one of the reasons why we’ve chosen to support nurse in their work with 5 concepts we’ve co-created with them, based on what nurses told us they needed, and we named those concepts Zorghelden (healthcare-heroes)
Let me stop here by sharing (again) the great TED-talk of Carolyn Jones: a tribute to nurses and join me in thanking the nurses in our communities, the heroes that take care of you, also when nobody watches!
