A challenging few years.

The last few years have been especially challenging for the nursing profession. We fought a virus that wreaked havoc on our patients, families, and on ourselves. We struggled with equity, diversity, and inclusion issues and we had to adjust how we educate nursing students, moving from in-person to hybrid and online models. Faced with inadequate numbers of competent staff, we developed innovative workforce and care models while focusing on fostering resiliency.

Through it all we recognized the need to acquire new knowledge and skills through continuing professional development to keep up with the demands of the evolving health care paradigm.

‘Every day we learned something new.’

Investment in professional development is essential so that we are prepared to care for our patients and ready to help shape and lead the future of health care. Every day during the pandemic we learned something new about caring for patients with COVID-19. Learning new skills, investing in new knowledge and education, challenging ourselves to think differently about situations, and being mindful can all help propel and focus our nursing journey.

The willingness to takes risks and challenge the status quo.

Our profession was built on nurses who were willing to take risks, learn, and challenge the status quo. The future of our profession will be secured if enough of us have the courage to keep moving forward.

This Nurses Month, let’s remember to invest in our own professional development and knowledge acquisition to move our own practice and the profession forward and optimize patient outcomes.

By Anne Dabrow Woods, DNP, RN, CRNP, ANP-BC, AGACNP-BC, FAAN, chief nurse, Health Learning, Research & Practice, Wolters Kluwer