Appreciating My Role in the International Workforce of Nurses

In May of this year, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the International Congress of Nursing in Japan, where nurses from the international community came together to share their interests, issues, and successes. This experience reinforced to me how nurses essentially are the same, wherever they may practice.

Workplace violence was a topic of great debate among many countries. It was remarkable to listen to nurses from like Africa and Haiti speak on this topic. They are in their infancy regarding dealing with violence to nurses. Hearing them ask for advice on how to get their nurses to even report physical or emotional abuse reminded me of where we were in the States several years ago and emphasizes the universality of this issue for nurses. It serves as a reminder that we must continue to be unrelenting in our efforts in the United States to follow through and keep our environment safe for our nurses. Nurses have made great strides in addressing safety in the workplace, but we still have work to do. It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to ensure that violence is not accepted. I challenge each of you to take the steps necessary at the state level to make sure there are laws in place to protect those in the workplace. Other countries look to the United States for guidance and support in this area.

Attending the Conference also gave me the opportunity to reflect on and appreciate the country in which I practice. Other countries have many attention-grabbing issues they deal with on a daily basis. Can you imagine, in addition to dealing with other nursing-related issues, being distressed over your nurses dying? Some nations are losing hundreds of nurses to HIV/AIDS. Representatives of Africa shared heart-wrenching stories of nurses with the active virus working in order to support their families and the loss of 312 nurses to this disease in 1 year. The rate of HIV/AIDS in Africa far exceeds the rate of any infectious disease we work with on a daily basis.

Representatives from Portugal talked about nurses in their country who work 24 to 48 hours straight to make enough money to survive. Many nurses in Portugal work as many as 3 jobs full time. In comparison, our concerns about mandatory overtime and call-back hours seem minimal. Japan has crowding issues because of a length of stay of 39 days in their medical facilities. We are a fortunate country. We have universal precautions available to use at all times. We earn enough to feed our families and support our homes. And yet it seems that crowding is everywhere.

So I challenge you: The next time you are tired and weary of working a 12-hour shift, think of the nurses around the world and the tribulations they face. We have a great country in which to live and practice our profession. We take so much for granted. I challenge you to think of other nurses doing the same compassionate work under dire situations and appreciate the great opportunity we have each day to work in clean, protected, and safe surroundings.