My mother-in-law worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant for almost forty years. She retired about three years ago. Her last fifteen of those years was out in the community with Visiting Nurses. She loved her patients like they were her own family. When asked if she was going to become a nurse, she would just smile and say, “I want to be with my patients. Not spend all day doing paperwork.”

For forty years that is what she did. Rain or shine. Snowstorms and blistering hot summers. She was as reliable and hard working as anyone I have ever known. Her patients got the best care she could possibly give them. Any weekend we visited her; she would tell us stories of her patients. She would give them gifts, and they were always giving her gifts. She was their family, and they were her family.

Being a nurse’s aide can be a very thankless job. They don’t get the same accolades and praise the RNs, LPNs and Physicians get. They receive no recognition publicly for what they do. It’s just not glamorous work. 

What I have learned in my twenty-seven years of nursing is that nurse’s aides don’t even want that stuff anyway. It’s not why they do what they do. They just love the people they take care of. They see most of their patients like a mother or father. They see them like a brother or a sister. Someone who just needs their help, and they are eager to provide that help. Even if most of the rest of us find it either too physically demanding or just gross. They do it every day. All day long. Without complaint.

To all the nurse’s aides, thank you. Thank you for being the backbone of healthcare. Thank you for doing the dirty work and loving it. Thank you for rolling up your sleeves every day and making sure all our patients get personal hygiene care. Care that brings relief no medication can ever match.

Please join me in celebrating nursing assistants all over America during National Nursing Assistants Week.

James

James worked on-and-off as an LPN for over 20 years. In 2014 he completed a bridge program and became an RN. James became a hospice nurse in January 2015. He lives in the Kansas City area with his wife of over 30 years, 4 daughters and 2 sons in law.