Reinvention

I have met emergency nurses from across the United States and around the world, and many believe their challenges are unique to them; however, this assumption is not true. Although we may live in different states or even countries, with different customs and languages, we are very much the same. We are bound together by the patients we care for, by the challenges we face, and by our commitment and passion for emergency nursing.

Recently I read an article on the art of reinvention,1 which made me think of the challenges we face as emergency nurses. This article defined reinvention as what can happen when circumstances permit you to evolve…or perhaps force you to evolve. Reinvention is taking something that already exists and seeing what it can become; it is the process of adaptation or compensation for the thing that has just happened, that was not foreseen in the original plan, and that requires an urgent solution right now.

Consider some of the challenges in emergency health care today:

I daresay that these challenges were not foreseen, were not part of the original plan, and require an urgent solution right now. I also would suggest that emergency health care needs to be reinvented. And who better than nurses to lead the way? After all, the last major reinvention of health care and nursing was led by a nurse—Florence Nightingale.

Many people believe that Florence Nightingale created nursing, but what she actually did was reinvent health care and nursing; after all, nursing has been in existence since the beginning of time. Nightingale became a nurse against all odds, then she changed the world she lived in as she reshaped/reinvented nursing into modern nursing as we know it today. She believed that nursing needed human compassion, a broad knowledge base, intelligent reasoning, and understanding. I believe this holds true today.

While changing the world we live in and reinventing emergency health care and nursing may seem overwhelming, Florence did it single-handedly, so we certainly can do it as a united group of committed individuals.

The 5 hallmarks to a successful reinvention are:

I challenge you to not be discouraged by this daunting task but instead be encouraged and have faith that together we will accomplish the work before us. We will no longer be bound by the challenges we face but instead will be bound by our courage, imagination, tenacity, resilience, and heart. We will be united in the legacy we will create as we reinvent emergency health care and nursing.