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Wed 20 Apr, 2005 03:33 pm
ANA National Nurses Week - May 6-12 2005
May 6th to May 12th is National Nurses Week! The theme this year is "Nurses: Many Roles, One Profession".
Ain't that the truth!
Congradulations to all nurses out there, let's get together here and celebrate when the time comes.
I just want to let all my fellow nurses know how appreciated your dedication to our profession is. I hope you all know that the patience and compassion given each day really does make this world a better place.
It's so great to be appreciated!! I encourage everyone to honor their fellow nurses. Some great ideas:
Suggestions For Celebrating Nurses Week
From Kathy Quan,
Your Guide to Nursing.
Nurse Gift Ideas
AllHeart.com Medical Gifts, Tshirts Every Day Low Prices Gifts
www.allheart.com
Nurses Gifts
Nurse gift bags filled with popcorn Nurses totes. We ship.
www.popcornpapa.com
Employee Appreciation
Starbucks & Hallmark, Latte Mug and Giftcard. "You Are Special Today"
www.theobsessionboxco.com
There have been some great responses to the call for suggestions for celebrating Nurses Week (May 6-12). If you'd like to contribute a suggestion, or read the great ideas, please log in to the Forum and voice your ideas. Or you can Email me as several others have done, and I'll compile them.
An idea that could be adapted for Nurses Week is something I helped our nursing supervisor pull together last year for a Quality Improvement meeting. We used this to draw more participants to the meeting, but it was successful in honoring our staff.
Pick a Theme
We used the Academy Awards to base the program on. We matched each staff member up with a movie role and/or former Oscar winner, who's acting role or other position such as directors, cinematographers, etc.
related to the personality or recent events for that staff member. (Not all of the examples were winning roles or even nominees, but they fit the theme.)
For example, a nurse who had demonstrated great efforts to get pictures of her patient's wounds for the charts, was named Best Cinematographer.
Best Screenplay went to the nurse who demonstrated the best efforts at charting. Best Actor went to our staff member who gave the best performance of a nurse who knew why he was making this home visit. (The information he was given about the patient and why she needed care was completely blank!)
Others were based on roles such as Nurse Ratchet (not!). This went to the nurse who gave the best performance of being extremely kind, caring and compassionate in the face of the most difficult patient we had serviced in a long time. (She really just wanted to throttle the patient, but went overboard to be nice instead.)
You could use movie themes, sports themes, even famous nurses. Let your imagination help you to brainstorm. Then let us know how it worked!
Everyone received a certificate of their award with the brief blurb as to why they were chosen for the award. We had a Red Carpet (red fabric or paper rolled out) and made our own silly Oscars from toilet tissue rolls covered in gold wrapping paper with a Styrofoam ball on the top that was spray painted gold.
Power Point Presentations
During their buffet luncheon, one group of nurses played a Power Point presentation on a laptop computer. It looped continuously so everyone got a chance to view it at some point. They had taken pictures of their nurses with patients (who gave written permission to be photographed and their pictures used... be careful about HIPPA!!). They "caught" their nurses in the act of doing what they do best...caring for their patients.
This was a small group, but I think it could work well with enough prep time, for a large group especially where not everyone knows each other. The picture could be captioned with the nurse's name, dept., and even a short tribute from peers or patients.
The presentation could be more or less formal. If you have a projector, a slide show format could be the entertainment portion of your celebration. Or letting it run on a laptop continuously throughout the day so that everyone has a chance to see it.
Print some of the pictures and post in the nurse's lounge. (Again being mindful of HIPPA if patients are included.
Involve Your Patients
Solicit tributes from patients, and former patients. Again, obtain permission to use their names, or allow them to be anonymous. Print their words on certificates, and read them at your celebration.
Hope this helps to get you going. Celebrate yourselves and your peers this year! And let us know what works, and doesn't.
Please make sure to check out the forum contest we have running this week.
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