10 years or so ago, I set my computer news to pull anything with “nurse practitioner” in the content. Generally wonderful items regarding NPs pulled: provider status, new positions, awards and recognitions, high outcomes, community transformations, NP-led practice openings. However, 2-3 times a year, the pull included a disheartening, negative news item related to an NP who was charged with some unethical or illegal action. Don’t get me wrong, you can search terms “physician”, “doctor”, “lawyer”, “professor”, etc. and find negative stories with this or greater frequency. But that's not the important point. The point is how saddening and disappointing these negative NP-related stories were.
This story is a long introduction to the point that we are professionals, members of the most trusted profession (nursing) and the role that is annually noted as a “top job” in USN&WR (NPs). More importantly, we owe it to our patients and colleagues to “stand like a rock” in everything related to principles, ethics, core values. Sometimes we may be tempted or persuaded to “swim with the current”. But we must question our motivations and those of others. Those not interested in uncompromising practice and actions don’t belong in our “tribe”.
The next blog in this series will discuss what is meant by “standing like a rock” vs “swimming with the current”. Meanwhile, I’ll leave it to you to do a similar search if you wish. Your can pair our title (or that of other professions) with terms such as "fraud" or "illegal" in your search. At some point in moving to a new computer, I simply did not select news items for daily review. So, the daily NP stories went away; I had to search for them if desired.