UK Joins Nation in Saluting Nursing Profession

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 6, 2015) – During National Nurses Week, May 6-12, 2015, the University of Kentucky and the nation will celebrate 3.2 million nurses who work as providers, leaders, researchers and policy leaders.

“Nurses are truly at the nexus of art and science,” said Janie Heath, Warwick Professor and Dean of the UK College of Nursing. "The art of managing the care of a multitude of individuals from a host of backgrounds and applying competent and compassionate care, which will enable so many to live longer, stronger and healthier lives." 

The impact a single nurse has throughout his or her career is significant. The JONAS Center for Nursing Excellence reports that a registered nurse working full time in a hospital touches the lives of more than 14,400 patients during the span of his or her career. The ethical complexity of working with such a vast number of patients is reflected in the theme of this year’s National Nurses Week, "Ethical Practice. Quality Care." 

"Nurses make ethical decisions every day and help patients do the same," said Pamela F. Cipriano, president of the American Nurses Association. "As nurses make decisions, they are practicing at the highest ethical standard, both for the work they do and how they actually support patients and families in the right to self-determination and the care they receive."

According to Heath, the ethical issues nurses face are growing in complexity. UK HealthCare and the UK College of Nursing are at the forefront of helping nurses tackle these issues through integrative models of education and health care delivery.

"Nurses are now being portrayed as caring, sophisticated, dedicated, intelligent and independent caregivers," Heath said. "Word is out that for well over a decade nurses are ranked by the Gallup Poll as having the highest level honesty and ethical standards of all professions.”

MEDIA CONTACT: Elizabeth Adams, elizabethadams@uky.edu