Beginning on Tuesday, May 6, nurses across the country, including nurses at Mahaska Health Partnership, will begin a week-long celebration of the nurturing and professional spirit of their career.

Darlene Keuning RN, BSN, MS, Chief Nursing Officer at MHP, said National Nurses’ Week begins annually on RN Recognition Day and ends May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, founder of nursing as a modern profession. MHP is joining hospitals and other organizations across the nation in recognizing nursing as a profession that embraces dedicated people with varied interests, strengths and passions for caring.

Keuning said there are planned celebrations throughout the week to honor MHP’s 115 nursing professionals, including a pancake breakfast for all hospital staff.

“We are proud to be nurses, but we also realize we are a part of the healthcare team and we want all hospital staff to know that we appreciate their contribution to excellent patient care,” Keuning stressed. “As nurses, we work in emergency rooms, provide nursing care at the bedside in hospitals and home health settings, staff school-based clinics, and can specialize in geriatric psych units and other healthcare settings. We have many roles — from staff nurse to educator to nurse practitioner — and serve all of them with passion for the profession and with a strong commitment to patient safety.”

According to projections released in February 2004 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, RNs top the list of the 10 occupations with the largest projected job growth in the years 2002-2012. Although RNs have listed among the top 10 growth occupations in the past, this is the first time in recent history that RNs have ranked first. These 10-year projections are widely used in career guidance, in planning education and training programs and in studying long-range employment trends.

The BLS report states that more than 2.9 million RNs will be employed in the year 2012, up 623,000 from the nearly 2.3 million RNs employed in 2002. However, the total job openings, which include both job growth and the net replacement of nurses, will be more than 1.1 million. This growth, coupled with current trends of nurses retiring or leaving the profession and fewer new nurses, could lead to a shortage of more than one million nurses by the end of this decade.

“While there is a national nursing shortage looming, MHP is blessed with a dedicated, high quality nursing staff providing outstanding care to our patients,” Keuning stressed. “Our quality nursing measures are exceptional and we currently don’t feel the nursing shortage as strongly as other hospitals.

“Living in a smaller, close-knit community, our nurses are truly neighbors taking care of neighbors. During the recent winter storms, our staff went the extra mile to assure that we not only had adequate coverage, but were able to continue offering a personalized touch to our patients.”

Keuning encourages the community to join the hospital in celebrating National Nurses’ Week.

“As we highlight the diverse ways in which nurses, the largest healthcare profession, are working to improve healthcare, we also want to stress the great career opportunities nursing has to offer and the wealth of specialized career possibilities in the nursing profession,” she said.