International Nurses Day 2020: A miscellany

First up, music to your ears on the day

RNZ Concert asked nurses 'to tell us about the classical music that relaxes or restores you and why' and also cited what Florence Nightingale wrote in Notes on Nursing: What it is and what is it not about music that would be helpful (or not) to those being nursed. Tune in to RNZ Concert's celebration of nurses - they will be playing music that restores and rejuvenates them.

Here's a sample of how it went: A nurse named Jo, working in palliative care, requested music from Bach, and gave the reason as that she felt it touched all aspects of health according to the Whare Tapa Wha model (taha tinana, taha hinehgaro, taha wairua, taha whānau) and helped her to restore at the end of her shift. She also spoke of working with talented music therapists whose work with patients could help bring relaxation, comfort, even joy. Late afternoon, Concert played for her the second aria " Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen" (Fall asleep, you weary eyes) from the cantata "Ich habe genug" (I have enough). Translation here, listen to the aria here.

Second, sign in to these events

The British Library is hosting a panel Florence Nightingale at 200. It runs live our time 0300-0400 W 13 May, but signing in may mean you can access the panel at your Antipodean leisure (I don't know for sure)... The event description: "Florence Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820 and went on to achieve a staggering amount in a long life of nursing and campaigning. In this live event our distinguished panel considers her life, career and legacy amid the current context of the Covid-19 pandemic. With biographer Mark Bostridge; editor of the 'Collected Works of Florence Nightingale,' Lynn McDonald; President of the Royal College of Nursing, Anne Marie Rafferty and one of our leading statisticians, David Spiegelhalter."

The Global Educational Development Institute is hosting An Evening With Florence Nightingale: A Reluctant Celebrity. This evening event runs at our time 0700-0730 W 13 May 2020 our time - register and you can watch the presentation later at a wine-friendly time (under Covid-19 you have the drill, your own glass and the computer screen). Offered by Candace Campbell a nurse working to improve interprofessional communication.

And, since 2020 is also the International Year of Women in Statistics and Data Science (yes, same anniversary, intentionally honouring Florence Nightingale) the International Statistical Institute, the ISI World Statistics Congress 2021 begins on 12 May 2020 with five presentations, two of which focus on Nightingale (available live 12 May 1300 CEST i.e. midnight 12/13 May our time, or later at the webpage).

A tribute to Florence Nightingale by Jessica Utts, Professor Emerita, Department of Statistics, University of California, Irvine, and Chair of the ISI Working Group on the International Year of Women in Statistics and Data Science.
Florence Nightingale: The lady with the data, and her work that is as relevant now as ever by Jacqueline Meulman, Professor of Applied Statistics, Mathematical Institute, Leiden University and Department of Statistics, Stanford University

Third, an inspirational thought for this day, and any day

Margareth Broodkoorn, Chief Nursing Officer, Ministry of Health, in conversation about being a nurse:

'It’s more than a career, it’s who you are'.

Just in, another thing

A shout out to the inspired collaboration between Oceania and Allbirds for International Nurses Day intheirshoes.co.nz

Also just in, from the 1:00pm press conference today
Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, at the end of his announcements, said (at -34:06 minutes on this link):

'And finally, today is international day of the nurse, and in 2020 it is part of an International Year of the Nurse and an International Year of the Midwife as well. So we are celebrating our nurses now more than ever. It's very clear that having a good, strong, well-trained nursing workforce improves health outcomes for individuals, our whanau and communities. And every day nurses have played a critical role as part of our Covid response over the last few months in addition to the work they do routinely providing fantastic care for NZers and I am sure all NZ will join me in thanking our nurses today and indeed everyday. Kia kaha, kia maia kia manawanui'.

Handing over to the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who followed on (at -32:56 minutes on this link):

'Can I just reiterate the comments made by Dr Bloomfield about our nurses and I have to say, even before Covid-19, I receive quite a few letters where people who have been through our public health system really want to acknowledge the workforce within our system - and I often will get a message saying how kind, how professional, how supportive our nursing workforce and our clinical workforce are within our public health system. I don't often get a chance to pass on that feedback, but today seems like the day to do it. Can I also acknowledge that we have a huge nursing workforce trained in New Zealand working abroad and who are doing the hard yards in this pandemic as well. We want to acknowledge all of the "Jennys" all around the world'.

And this is as they had done to recognise midwives a week ago on International Midwives' Day, 5 May.

And then, things you can look at or listen to any time online

Hear Nightingale speak! In 1890, a recording was made at Nightingale's London home in support of the Light Brigade Relief Fund. Story here and sound recording here. Her participation in this project when she received very few visitors reflects her belief in the resourcefulness, resilience and dignity of the ordinary soldier. She wrote to her sister, "I have never been able been able to join the popular cry about the recklessness, sensuality, and helplessness of the soldiers.... Give them opportunity promptly and securely to send money home and they will use it. Give them schools and lectures and they will come to them. Give them books and games and amusements and they will leave off drinking. Give them suffering and they will bear it" (Bostridge 2008: p284). In recognition of her service in the Crimea...

Not a medal, but an enamelled brooch was given to Nightingale by Queen Victoria in 1855, the Nightingale jewel, '...as a mark of esteem and gratitude for her devotion towards the Queen's brave soldiers'.

An imagining of what Nightingale would have been doing in the Covid-19 pandemic of our time, which I wish I'd written, but back in 1997 on International Nurses Day, Jocelyn, Lady Keith and I did something a lot like that in a presentation at Parliament 'Don't Miss Nightingale'.

Speaking of pandemics: Suzanne Gordon, who with her co-author Bernice Buresh have made a journalistic project of advocating for nurses and nursing work asks Why does it take a pandemic to recognise nurses? By the way, there are free extracts from both their books at these links: From Silence to Voice. What nurses know and must communicate to the public (includes a gracious foreword by Patricia Benner, worth the download alone) and Nursing against the odds; how health care cost cutting, media stereotypes, and medical hubris undermine nurses and patient care.

The Covid-19 pandemic as a game changer? Street artist Banksy donated a painting to England’s Southampton General Hospital with that title. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, read it here in a BBC report or here in a comment from the art world. I'm comfortable with a superhero having a cape and a cap (but it's been discussed) and thank heavens there's no lamp in hand...

The truth about Nightingale's lamp - typically portrayed as an oil lamp when it was a folding Turkish lamp....

That and other myths brilliantly exposed in the most recent award-winning biography of Nightingale by Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale the woman and her legend, the 550 pages of which kept me entertained (seriously entertained) for a few days over the summer break. An interview in The Independent is similarly enlightening but briefer, and includes this anecdote: 'He recounts a story of working on the archive while a fellow Nightingale sleuth was reading documents in the same room. "I went to the loo, and when I came back she was poring over my notes. It's the biographer's nightmare!" he laughs'. I wonder who that was?

Or you could attempt the the sixteen volume Collected Works of Florence Nightingale...?

Or her letters? The Florence Nightingale Digitization Project has a database of about 2000 handwritten letters – out of an estimated 19,000. The project is a collaboration begun by the Florence Nightingale Museum in London, England, the Boston University Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, the Royal College of Nursing and the Wellcome Library, with other organisations also contributing their collections. The project has the aim of making the work of Florence Nightingale available.

For a real diversion, you could read, a little book about Nightingale’s pet owl Athena, by her sister Parthenope, Lady Vernon - Life and death of Athena: an owlet from the Parthenon.

And, hoping for the future

Timothy Hurd, the national carillonist, is open to the idea of celebrating nurses and the legacy of Florence Nightingale (as there's a complicated connection between a carillon in Florida and Nightingale, more about that another time). The Nurses' bell could well feature (it's clear as a bell that its dear to nurses). Have a look and listen here.

Received on 13 May 2020, news from the Florence Nightingale Foundation

My plan for this year had been to be at Westminster Abbey for the 200th anniversary service of Florence Nightingale's birth. As it happens, neither my attendance or the service is happening. Instead of the service, the Foundation's Florence Nightingale White Rose Appeal has been enthusiastically launched by the storied Helena Bonham Carter CBE, who has both a family connection to Nightingale and personal experience of her father being nursed at home for 24 years. The appeal will fund the Foundation's work in developing nurses and midwives, supporting emotional well-being in the Covid-19 epidemic, and white roses at the Westminster Abbey service when it is rescheduled.

My thanks to Jocelyn, Lady Keith and Jill Caughley for material they brought to my attention.