Sonicu salutes American Nurses

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

                                                                                             Mahatma Gandhi

Closing out the first full week May, we also closed out National Nurses Week on May 12, appropriately enough, on Florence Nightingale’s birthday.

The first nurses week honoring the dedicated men and women of most noble of professions was held in 1954, and we thought it would be interesting to comb government databases, U.S. Census figures, and expert periodicals for nursing facts and trivia.

We learned:

• There were some 4.1 million men and women engaged in nursing as of October 2017.
• There are approximately 10 nurses to every three physicians.
• American Poet Walt Whitman pulled a three-year stint as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War after his brother, George Washington Whitman, was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862.
• Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American woman to graduate from nursing school and begin practicing in 1879. Mahoney was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 1976 and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993.
• Women comprise the vast majority of nursing’s ranks; only 9 percent of nurses are men; however, men make up 41 percent of nurse anesthesiologists.
• The average age of RNs is 50 years-old.

There’s no shortage of facts and figures about the profession. Statistics indicate that 80 percent of the nursing force labors while suffering musculoskeletal pain, and a good number of nurses feel bullied by healthcare administration.

Then we came across the picture of U.S. Air Force Capt. Kristen McCabe tending a severely wounded U.S. Special Forces casualty during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

Gazing at that particular image, facts and figures didn’t matter anymore.

Army Cpl. Keith Kluwe captured the image in 2003 aboard a Critical Care Aeromedical Transport plane en route to Germany from a forward operating theater. McCabe, strapped to the floor of the big C-17 transport plane, stood by her patient’s side throughout the trip.

The essence of nursing can be found right there in that photograph. Odd thing is, words don’t come close to describing it, but several elements of Kluwe’s photo define it.

McCabe’s brow, furrowed with concern and glistening in sweat. The tender way her gloved hand touches the mangled hand of her charge. Her eyes – intense, focused, completely in the moment with her patient. The human connection: She is close, and she does not leave.

At Sonicu we think we do a pretty good job of providing safety and protection with our wireless temperature monitoring and cloud-based monitoring solutions for sound and hospital noise reduction, humidity and air pressure differential.

Our products and technology are solid. Our solutions are efficient and effective. We stand with our corporate healthcare partners to provide a comprehensive answer to the challenges of conditions monitoring and regulatory compliance.

Still, most of what we do isn’t a match for the compassion and selfless dedication displayed by the men and women of America’s nursing corps.

They make us better. They make us well. And we salute them on National Nurses Week.