Summary

Nursing is a profession. Nursing has been around for thousands of years. Nurses are leaders in healthcare. Nursing will continue to lead professionally in the delivery of quality healthcare.

Nursing Is a Profession

For our collective wellbeing, it is critical for US to unite. Health professionals unite against Trump for our collective wellbeing. Nursing is a profession. Let’s discuss this issue.

Health Professionals Unite Against Trump 2025

Health professionals receive education, training, and ongoing education in their respective health professions. Health professionals require specialized knowledge and the skills to apply this knowledge. Health professionals have codes of ethics and scope of practice guidelines which inform their professional work.

The recent declassification of nursing professionals, social workers, physician assistants, educators, physical therapists, and audiologists by the Department of Education is an effort to co-opt the healthcare system. It will not work, Trump. We are all health professionals and we will remain health professionals as we stand up against the regime.

We will not be silenced by the Trump Administration’s efforts to take our nation back to the Dark Ages. We know our worth and value. We will fight for Democracy.

Profession Defined: 2025

To profess having a set of specific skills is a good start in trying to define the word ‘profession’. To be a member of a profession is to be part of a community which shares certain skills. Each member of the group pursues a education and training to acquire the skills and maintains the knowledge and skills. Each member of the professional community has some obligation to the public. Finally, the individual member of the professional society embodies an unselfishness in practicing the profession, as in espousing a vocation as part of their work.

Nursing is clearly a profession.

The History of Nursing

Nursing has been around for millennia. Our profession is strongly based in education, practice, and research. We are experts in our field of practice.

First Nations’ peoples in North America practiced the healing arts long before Europeans arrived in North America. The healing practices included isolating patients contaminated with contagious illnesses and employing herbal remedies. Despite the abuses and attempted genocide by the European settlers, First Nations’ peoples in North America survived as did their healing practices which predate modern European nursing practice.

In the USA, enslaved women were the nurses (and were experimented on) who provided hands-on nursing duties in the plantation hospitals. Some trained for several years to become midwives, all the while enslaved and devoid of freedom.

Evelyn Adam is a seminal figure in Canadian nursing who defined the practice of nursing and elaborated the conceptual models underpinning nursing education, nursing practice, and nursing research. Adam’s writings clearly establish that nursing is not practiced in a void: our pedagogy, clinical practice, and research are founded on sound principles, unique to nursing. Conceptual models inform the science of nursing.

But, let’s go back even further, to my ancestor, Marie Hébert, who was married to Louis Hébert, considered the first European settler of New France. 1617. Yes, Trump, 1617. Then, in Québec, we also had Jeanne Mance and Marguerite d`Youville, 1642 and 1747, respectively. Jeanne Mance is considered the co-founder of the city of Montréal.

Nursing in North America goes way back. We are strong. We are professional. And, we are united.

Collective Wellbeing and Nursing

Nursing practice is guided by a framework of collecting information; developing a diagnostic profile; implementing interventions; and reassessing the treatment plan based on the patient’s response to the plan of care.

That is the scientific process.

Then we have our code of ethics and nursing practice concepts. Nursing conceptual models (often called nursing theories in English) inform nursing research, nursing education, and nursing practice. As Evelyn Adam noted, the conceptual model, that is the nursing theory in English, underlying a nursing curriculum or nursing research or nursing practice, comprises elements such as its social utility, social congruence, and social significance. We do not learn in a void, in nursing. We do not practice in a void, in nursing. We do not conduct research in a void, in nursing.

Take-Aways: Nursing Is a Profession

Nursing is a profession, period. We have been for millennia. We will continue to be, notwithstanding the statements of the US Department of Education.

We are leaders. We will continue to be professionals and leaders.

We will vanquish the misinformation and disinformation of the Trump Administration.

WE ARE NURSES!

International Council of Nurses: I Am a Nurse

Nurse Jamie Barthus: I Am a Nurse

Please give generously to your local food pantries. Your neighbours will thank you.

Disclaimer: This post is not meant to substitute for a consultation with your mental health care professional team.

If you are thinking of hurting yourself or of hurting someone else, please CALL 9-1-1; CALL 9-8-8; or GO TO the nearest emergency room.

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Nota Bene:

USA Government websites are being purged by the current Trump Administration to align the website content with the regime’s political agenda. Please note that any government website cited in this and other posts on this website may no longer contain evidence based or historically correct information. Thus, I am trying to avoid including any references or resources which derive from a USA government website. This is not bias; I take this action in an effort to maintain a factually sound content in my posts.