Home Forums COVID-19 Pandemic: Bearing Witness, Telling our Story A New Kind of Patriotism Thoughts by Mark Lawrence Schrad. What takeaway do you see for DNP colleagues? Reply To: Thoughts by Mark Lawrence Schrad. What takeaway do you see for DNP colleagues?

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Alma Rodriguez
Participant

When I think of patriotism I think of a lot of people, especially people that served our military as the first statement read. There are other words that come to mind before patriotism to describe nurses, such as caregivers, compassionate workers, strong and intelligent. There were a few words to describe nurses when the pandemic began that a lot of the media, hospital management and our community members used to describe healthcare workers such as heroes, superheroes, amazing people, among others. And then there were statements after the pandemic had been around for a while which were very discouraging to read and feel like i was a part of such as “From hero to zero” when nurses and other healthcare members started to get fired for standing up for their medical freedoms. “You signed up for this, suck it up” when we expressed our concern over the lack and shortage of PPE. “You don’t know what you’re talking about” as we learned more about covid and regulations started changing leading our community to mistrust healthcare. Patriotism isn’t a word that I would have considered during these times, however, unless you have personally witnessed the death a lot of nurses have encountered, along with the grief they carry after working with so many of these people that unfortunately did not make it, patriotism would not be a word to describe healthcare workers, in this case nurses. After reflecting on these past years, and how the pandemic has personally affected my life, I would say patriotism and pride are absolutely some of the words I will start to include in my vocabulary due to the time, care and effort we put into our community to ensure the safety of others when at times we did not know exactly how this would personally affect us in more than one way.