By Jennifer Decker Arevalo, MA, contributor
Nov. 11, 2009 - Across the country, Americans are paying tribute to military veterans for their valiant and dedicated service. Increasingly, nurses are being honored—some traditionally, like the 10 veterans of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps who trained at Reid Hospital in Richmond, Ind., during World War II, who will host their local Veterans Day Parade. Others are being honored in less traditional ways.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), nurses from the Phoenix VA Health Care System will guide a giant helium balloon depicting a World War I U.S. Army Nurse Corps woman through the city streets as part of the annual Veterans Day Parade.
Why?
For decades, military nurses have delivered the best possible care to their fellow service members under hostile conditions in every major theater of war. Similarly, VA nurses have compassionately and respectively served as caregivers for military personnel.
Historically, recognition has been focused on the soldiers, but more and more Americans are realizing the significance of these nurses who served and serve others.
Military Nurses
“Nurses do whatever is necessary to accomplish their missions—it’s what we're here for” is the prevailing theme of an ongoing study of military nurses conducted at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. Nurses at War is an oral history project that analyzes combat nursing experiences, honors nurses who served in the Persian Gulf Wars by sharing their stories, and archives their personal accounts.
These audio-taped chronicles provide insight into their unique challenges, including:
• Working with few resources
• Risking personal safety
• Learning new skills at breakneck speeds
• Dealing with difficult patients
• Handling large volumes of patients in brief periods of time at a moment’s notice
• Experiencing personal changes.
In addition, caring for others encompasses more than just caring for patients and noncombatants; it also involves supporting the entire health care team, caring for country, and being cared for in return by its citizens.
“Their mission is an often-unheralded task of caring for the sick and dying, making the best out of the worst of conditions and quietly sharing the heavy burdens of those whose lives have been shattered by the horrors of war. The meaning of such profound life experiences is embedded in their stories,” stated study investigators in a 2008 issue of Nurse Outlook.
Archived recollections of military nurses from previous wars throughout the past century can also be found in the Veterans History Project, created in 2000 by the United States Congress as part of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
In her statement to the Senate Appropriations Committee in March 2009, RADM Christine Bruzek-Kohler, NC, director of the Navy Nurse Corps, remarked on the positive experiences that Navy nurses have had during wartime deployments.
“A maturity, sense of personal fulfillment, and confidence of having done something that their peers have not done is readily identifiable among my nurses returning from these unique deployments,” she said. “From the way they act, talk and perhaps even the swagger in their walk, one can tell that they have returned with experiences far unrealized in the past, and matured in a way years could never have provided.”
This maturation seems to be universal as findings from a 1996 U.S. Air Force Reserves’ study of nurses who served in Vietnam revealed that they found their stay to be one of the most rewarding experiences of their careers, even though they struggled with moral and ethical dilemmas of wartime nursing, physical and emotional stresses, felt out-of-place and lacked privacy.
VA Nurses
With over 75,000 nurses, the VA has one of the largest nursing staffs worldwide. In the summer 2009 issue of News from NOVA, Nancy Claflin, RN, PhD, CCRN, CPHQ, FNAHQ, president of the Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs (NOVA) praises VA nurses as providing “the best care anywhere to our veterans.”
“Your caring and compassion is unsurpassed,” she continued. “You take pride in putting patients first, providing quality care, and working tirelessly to keep patients safe. We are all free to make our voices heard, no matter what opinions we hold, and we owe that freedom to our Veterans.”
Since the establishment of the VA in 1930, VA nurses have risen to the challenges and constant changes in health care delivery and patients’ needs due to the escalating severity of injuries caused by advanced weapons of war.
Their work doesn’t go unnoticed. The VA recently honored six nurses who are helping to transform the VA into a 21st century health care model that is people-centric, forward-looking, and results-driven, according to the VA Office of Public Affairs.
Recognizing that VA nurses are often the last people to care for dying soldiers, the VA recently formed statewide partnerships to increase veterans’ access to end-of-life care. The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association salutes those nurses, who not only serve, but also provide the compassionate care that often requires the sacrifice of their emotions, needs, and lives, according to a 2007 article in Home Healthcare Nurse.
“Our warriors and their families deserve the best possible care we can provide,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Kimberly A. Siniscalchi, chief of the Air Force Nurse Corps, in a statement to the Senate Appropriations Committee. “It is the nurses' touch, compassion and care that often wills a patient to recovery or softens the transition from life to death.”
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