Without a doubt I agree with you BIG time. I'm glad that there is a National Nurses Week to raise awareness about what nurses do, but it's pretty sad to see that no one is spending that week trying to figure out how to solve the nursing shortage and all of the stuff (burnout, management, etc) that comes with it.

I think nurses are similar to mothers in that everyone appreciates what we do, it is just often taken for granted. Mothers only get 1 day! lol We still rank second as the most respected and trusted profession. (fireman rank #1).

I may come from a slightly different perspective living in California.......nursing working conditions are tightly regulated here: staffing in ICU is max 1:2 and in the ER max 1:4. My hospital has a no cancellation/float/pt lifting policy and the wages are the highest in the nation. I have self-scheduling and work 3 12's a week. All thanks to our union! Knowing the conditions that nurses face outside of Cali, I try not to complain too much, although we do have our problems. Overall Kaiser, my hospital, has been good to me.

In spite of that, I was VERY disappointed with their recognition of us this year. We have a new director this year, a RN of all things, and she decided that our recognition would be a breakfast consisting of muffins, orange juice, and coffee. WTF!!!!!!!!! This is what they provide to the residents on a weekly basis during their post conferences! It felt like a slap in the face. Like they were saying "here take your muffin and get out of here!" To add insult to injury, the hospital down the street from us presented each of their nurses with I Pod's! It may sound materialistic, but I just wish they would have put more effort into showing how much they appreciate us.

Every member of the healthcare team is important and has a huge impact on patient outcomes. Let's be real here, when it comes to hospital care, nurses are the only member of the healthcare team that a hospital cannot go without. I work in cardio-thoracic critical care and emergency. When there are not enough nurses to staff our department, open heart surgery cases are cancelled because there are no nurses to care for the patients post op. This results in a HUGE loss of revenue. In the ER, when we are critically understaffed, which is often, we go on divert- also resulting in revenue.

National Nurses Week needs to be national recogntion, rather than an extra meal from your employer. We need to be recognized by the media, gov't, schools, ect.