Ideas on how to thank and recognize your local nurses

To the Nurses in our community and beyond, Paragon Leadership thanks you!    Note suggestions for how you can thank the nurses in your community!

As a parent, daughter, patient and business owner I thank you, Nurses, for your unwavering acts of healing and support, especially during such difficult times.

Like many of you, the nursing profession is one I hold in great regard and am particularly sentimental and appreciative of.   Due to my daughter being a nursing student at the University of Michigan, calling twice for EMS services for a family member, and having been a surgical patient myself during this pandemic, I have great awareness of all the sacrifices and selfless acts our nurses have performed and continue to perform, for Covid and non-Covid patients alike.

If you wish to thank the nurses in your community, especially as we recognize the profession during Nurses Week, here are a few suggestions of how you can show some random acts of kindness.

• Inquire with your local health care institution/hospital, as to how to recognize a particular nurse who has been of support to you personally or a loved one.
• Shout out with a simple thank you by writing a personal note and sending it electronically.
• Engage your family in developing a bright and uplifting sign and placing it near one of your medical settings where it can be viewed daily.
• Lend a listening ear to a nurse you may know personally or offer to pay for a professional counseling session.  Do not underestimate the emotional toll many of our nurses are experiencing. The ongoing concern for their mental state is real.
• Ask your children for ideas of how to recognize nurses.  You will be amazed at the great ideas they come up with.  (Note the teddy bear the children of one family put in their window that quickly caught on throughout their community.)
• Think of other symbolic ways to recognize nurses. (For example, place a white ribbon on trees in front of your home, as many communities have begun to adopt)
• Financially contribute to providing food or other support for nurses through community efforts that have formed in your region or community.
• Interview a nurse in your community and share his/her story.  Note several nurses Paragon has recognized in our Healthcare Hero feature.

When we take the time and effort to change our gratitude into action, we bring smiles and joy to many.  Such random acts of kindness help our Nurses, and it also helps us to feel connected to our community and brings a new lightness to our hearts.  If you take a moment to imagine one of these acts of kindness, I bet you will have a glimpse of those positive feelings that come from making the lives of others a little brighter.   Truly, our Nurses model for us how actions and kindness make the difficult days a little easier.   I invite you to join me in preforming an act of kindness for the Nurses!