Moving from Medical Staff to Preservers of Life

Language is vibrant. More than simple labels, it fills our minds and imaginations with imagery.?

Recognizing Nursing as a profession has been a very arduous journey, one to raise the respect and public value of nurses. Understandably, the field of medicine has long been a respected profession.?Riding on the skirt-tails of the thoughts that medicine saves lives, nurses have been living in the shadows of medicine for a very long time. Medicine reigns in the dimension that focuses on pain relief, chronic disease management, and “get-better-quick” ideologies. While Nursing plays a supportive role in that world, the alternate, and just as true reality, is that there are many modalities where nursing exists independent of a Practitioner and is not reliant on the extensive use of pharmaceuticals. Humanity has chosen to relocate to the latter dimension; it is inevitable that nurses will facilitate this process to healing.?

After a decade of Nursing, and as a new mother with the opportunity to quite literally nurse my newborn baby, I have finally made the connection to the label nurse and the act of nursing, or weaning a young child. The label fits perfectly: just as a young one realizes that they are vulnerable and dependent on the mother to provide and protect them, soothe and comfort them, so too the patient quickly forms an intimate bond with a nurse. This relationship is one of the few times in life when a complete stranger can ask the most embarrassing and intimate questions - all within the first few minutes of an introduction - and it is never taken with judgement; there is no hesitation by the patient to bear their souls and expose their bodies with a level of trust and confidence that few other people will ever gain.

"We must preserve our own lives well in order to be able to give to those whom we serve."

Preservers of Life calls to who we are and what we really do as a Nurse. It is also the imagery that makes us fully aware that we must preserve our own lives well in order to be able to give our love and time to those whom we serve. Our body is the instrument that we use to touch and preserve the lives of hundreds more and the vehicle needed to transport others to their healthy world.?

The name Preservers of Life speaks to the value of each nurse, regardless of their skill, field, or level of education and focuses on how we cherish and preserve life rather than the tasks we can accomplish. Being a preserver of life allows you to happily recognize your strengths and the strengths of your colleagues, moves you to embrace, collaborate and celebrate the accomplishment of every nurse, and humbly operates on the realization that no one person can preserve the life of a population, nor increase the health of a nation, all by themselves. The title Preservers of Life also works to uplift and elevate the teams and people who support nurses to work seamlessly such as the aides and assistants. This title serves as a reminder that we work, not in title only, but we work in every way to preserve a life, protect the dignity and honor the thoughts of fellow man. Preserving life is not limited to preventing death, it includes the unfortunate truth that some people alive have never really lived. Being a true Preserver of Life requires living a whole, healthy life.

Preservers of Life is not a title to bring a change in language or education, we bring a change in perspective.