Experiences
Heartland Home Health Care Administrator Honors and Thanks Nurses During Nurses Week
Tara Magruda, Administrator for Heartland Home Health Care Serving Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh, PA), sent out a heartfelt letter to her team of nurses for National Nurses Week. Tara said, “I send thank you cards to my staff each year to celebrate during Nurses Week. This year has had a different feeling for me. I’ve been in awe watching the bravery of the nurses throughout our country and my own team as they go out and face uncertainty of what they may encounter each day. We began referencing the ‘Nightingale Pledge’ and the meaning it has to all of us. That also caused me to reflect on my reasoning for becoming a nurse and how the experience of being a nurse has changed my life. I started writing the letter from my heart to show what being a nurse has meant to me and how much respect I have for each of them and what they do every day. The job is a difficult one, but so very worth it!” Read Tara’s letter below:
To each of my fellow nurses as we celebrate Nurses Week:
This year is particularly special to me. At this very difficult time in our nation and across the world, I’m especially proud of our profession. I’ve been reflecting about becoming a nurse so many years ago; the excitement of earning my pin, then cap and finally graduating. At graduation, all of the nurses recited the “Nightingale Pledge” with our class. We promised before God to practice our profession faithfully for those committed to our care.
Could any of us have known then the impact of that very devotion to our lives? Many of us nurses feel “called” to the profession to help others and to make a positive impact in the world. What we don’t anticipate is the impact it will have on our own lives and that being a nurse will forever change us. It will build our memories, color our views, break our hearts, challenge us, grow us, lift us or flatten us.
At this difficult time in our nation and across the world, I’m so very proud of our profession and humbled to be part of it. As nurses stand, we’re an integral part of the health care team at the front line against this deadly pandemic, doing it with professionalism, selflessness, compassion and sacrifice. While not new to us, these qualities find themselves on full display exactly when our grateful nation needs to see them most. These are just the everyday qualities of a nurse. Yes…we were “called”. Yes…we do make a difference. We didn’t/couldn’t have known what nursing held for us, but we did know, even then, what we had to give.
Thank you to all of you. In honor of National Nurses Week, please celebrate our profession with pride. Please celebrate knowing for sure that you really do make a difference in a profession that gets back as much as it gives.
Thank you!
Tara
