Nephrology nurses need to ‘think outside the box,’ advocate for the profession
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Key takeaways:
- Nephrology nurses need to show pride in their profession to the outside world.
- Nurses are always teachers, and opportunities abound to teach others.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Nurses are a key component of the caregiving team in the management of patients with kidney disease, but they need to make a stronger effort to promote themselves and their profession, a speaker said here.
“We need to be proactive, not reactive,” Donna Cardillo, MA, RN, CSP, FAAN, told attendees of the American Nephrology Nurses Association National Symposium during the Janel Parker Memorial Opening Lecture. “And we need to take as good care of ourselves as we do our patients.”
Cardillo said nurses should make changes and become more versatile. “The renaissance nurse is a businessperson and a clinician – someone who cares about themselves as much as about their patients,” she said. “It is a nurse who builds and nurtures a strong network, develops their own voice and uses it, and is both a student and a teacher.
“A renaissance nurse is both multidimensional and multitalented,” she said.
Cardillo, a motivational speaker whom ANNA leaders labelled the “Nurse Whisperer” and the “Inspirational Nurse,” said she has heard nurses disrespect the value of the profession. “Some of us have gotten in the habit of showing disrespect for what we do, just trashing nursing,” she said. “I’ve heard nurses try and talk their kids out of becoming a nurse.
“We need to stop the negative talk and do the walk” about positively promoting nursing, she said.
Cardillo called the 1990s a “terrible, dark time,” when hospitals laid off nurses to cut down on costs and hired untrained assistant personnel to fill those roles. Nurses stayed isolated within their profession, Cardillo said, and that allowed hospitals to cut corners.
“That [isolation] didn’t help because we didn’t understand what was going on around us,” she said. “It becomes learned helplessness.”
“Nurses have to get out of their comfort zone,” Cardillo said. “The key is to wake up to whom you really are as nurses. When you tell people you are a nurse, change your language. Learn self-promotion.
“You are not just a nurse.”
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Cardillo D. A nursing renaissance: The dawn of a new era. Presented at: American Nephrology Nurses Association National Symposium; May 7-10, 2023. Palm Springs, Calif.
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