Nursing Pledge

by D
(Colorado, USA)

It is sad to see that nurses have forgotten their roots. The simple fact is that nursing is a Christian vocation. Secular nurses may hem and haw about how they believe it is possible to define caring in some secular manner. 'Caring' and 'Christ' are not divisible. One hypocracy clearly visible in your 'new' nursing pledge is how the distribution of contraceptives and participation in sterilizations and abortions are conveniently left out of the text, but widely included in the daily interventions of many nurses.

-D in Colorado

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Nursing Pledge

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Feb 23, 2011

Nightingale Pedge - Your Comments and Mine #3
by: Bev

Thank you for your comments and I am glad for the opportunity to expand on the modern Nightingale Pledge. If you have these misconceptions about the history of nursing and the obligations of the nursing profession, I am sure that others do too, so I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight.

Comment on the revised Nightingale Pledge by D-Colorado:
"One hypocracy clearly visible in your 'new' nursing pledge is how the distribution of contraceptives and participation in sterilizations and abortions are conveniently left out of the text, but widely included in the daily interventions of many nurses."

My response:

The modern day nightingale pledge is not meant to describe what nurses do, but how they will do
it, and how they will approach their professional obligations.

There is nothing in the modern pledge that suggests that nurses must perform any of the procedures you describe if it is against their own personal value system. So there is no hypocrisy.

If a nurse does not believe that procedures such as abortion, sterilization, or contraception are morally right, there is no requirement to work in settings where those procedures are done.

In order to fulfill the legal requirement of the duty to care however, a nurse cannot abandon the care of patients who might decide for themselves to undergo a legal procedure that the nurse disagrees with.
Nurses are required to care for all patients, not just those that choose to do what the nurse thinks is morally right.

Within the context of everyday nursing practice a nurse will look after patients and families who make decisions that the individual nurse may disagree with.

This includes, caring for a patient diagnosed with lung cancer who continues to smoke, caring for a patient with complications of drug abuse who continues to use, caring for a person who refuses blood transfusions because of religious beliefs, caring for clients who are non-compliant with treatment plans and even caring for clients who refuse to use fertility control and continue to put their own health and the welfare of their family at risk by having more children.

It is obvious that you are a deeply religious person, but religious people do not own "caring". If you were a nurse would you have difficulty with some of the situations I have described? Would you be able to care for these people in a professional caring manner without bringing religion into your relationship with the patient?

Professional nurses in Canada and elsewhere, do this all the time because they know how to care professionally.

I accept and understand that you do not like my new version and your own preference would be to
to keep the references to God as in the original version because you think that nursing still has ties to a religion which forms the foundation for caring.

The nursing profession in Canada, the United States and around the globe, does not agree with your position.

Feb 23, 2011

Nightingale Pedge - Your Comments and Mine #2
by: Bev

Comments on the nightingale pledge from D-Colorado included this statement:

"Secular nurses may hem and haw about how they believe it is possible to define caring in some secular manner. 'Caring' and 'Christ' are not divisible."

These concepts are absolutely divisible. You have a religious context to the word "caring", but it is quite possible to be a deeply caring person and not be religious, and it is certainly possible to be a deeply caring person and not be a Christian.

Professional caring has been the subject of academic research and exploration for many years and now forms part of the body of knowledge that establishes nursing as a profession. Nurse theorists such as Jean Watson would be insulted to know that a life's work of research and exploration on the concept of caring is simply as you put it "hemming and hawing".

In the nursing profession caring occurs because a nurse learns how to care within the social, legal, ethical, professional and even spiritual imperatives of the profession. Nurses can and do learn how to care.

It is not something that occurs because one becomes filled with divine light of some sort. It actually requires a significant amount of study and practice at how to be therapeutic and caring in professional relationship. There also has to be a good understanding of human behavior, and a commitment to work with people who need help not because we like them or approve of what they are doing, but because we have a obligation to work in the public interest for establishing, restoring and maintaining health at all stages of human growth and development.

Feb 22, 2011

Nightingale Pledge - Your Comments and Mine
by: Bev

Your comments on the Nightingale Pledge are accepted and thoughtfully considered.

However, I think that you have a very narrow view of the nursing profession.

Your view seems to be warm and fuzzy. Nurses everywhere would say it ain't so and it is, in fact, a lot of hard work to care.

I would like to take this opportunity to expand on the comments in your posting and
expand further on the context of nursing as a profession.

To do so I offer my reply to each of your comments.

"It is sad to see that nurses have forgotten their roots."

I am extremely proud that nurses have not forgotten their roots. Nurses are still doing today what Florence Nightingale suggested they should do and that is:

"....what nursing has to do...is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him."

The nursing profession has evolved into a strong,
well respected and ethical profession with strong values of justice, accessibility, client autonomy, and competent ethical care.

"The simple fact is that nursing is a Christian vocation."

Have you investigated the history of nursing? It is certainly not a simple history. there are many sectors that are part of the nursing profession's history including the military.

Nursing actually predates Christianity so the roots of caring are certainly not owned by Christians.

There have been people in all civilizations and all religions who cared for others all over the
world well before any historical reference to a man named Jesus.

Christianity has however, made a contribution to nursing and that was the contribution of involving women in nursing as nuns.

Before this time caring for the sick was considered to be undignified and too difficult for women to participate in.

At other times in history, nursing care was only done by criminals and prostitutes because it was considered to be such an "dirty" job. This value still persists in some cultures today as nursing involves the handling of bodily discharges and waste.

Thankfully these "roots" have been abandoned!

Modern day nursing has moved beyond many of the historical values about who should care for the sick and injured.

The nursing profession now embraces health promotion in all its aspects with respect to all the determinants of health including the social, biological, environmental, genetic, and spiritual realms.

So you can see that the history of nursing is in fact quite varied and diverse. To suggest that the profession has it roots in Christianity is not correct as many of the fundamental principals upon which nursing is based are also present in other religions such as Islam, Sikhism, the Baha'i faith and even Buddhism.

I refer to such principles as social justice, community involvement, unity, caring, and equality.

These are principles which Jesus Christ himself advocated but did not invent or even own.

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