Sisters and Brothers,
It is only appropriate that this week, in addition to recognizing public servants, we also recognize our nation’s dedicated nurses.
As I write you today, tens of millions of nurses across America and the world are sharing with their fellow man an essential, yet rare, commodity: care. This National Nurses Week, I want to reflect on this role, and just how critical our nurses are in delivering this most fundamental of services.
Care is more than coming to work in the morning and doing your job. Care is staying late to make sure that your patient receives the attention they need. Care is being at your patient’s side on their birthday – even if their family is not. Care is going the extra mile every day; not to please a supervisor, or even oneself, but to make someone else’s life the best it can be – at that moment, and always.
Each and every day nurses throughout the world stand ready as the arm to lean on, the shoulder to cry on, the leg to stand on, and much more. Care, brothers and sisters, is not just their profession – it is their creed, expressing itself in beautiful ways in homes and hospitals throughout the world.
So, to every nurse we represent in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service, and indeed all nurses, we sincerely thank you for making the world a better place – one patient at a time.
William R. Dougan
National President