Connected through nursing

It’s been a long quarter, especially since psych nursing hasn’t been my cup of tea. But finals have come and gone, and this time, before putting away the books and tuning out for the week and a half off, I had the pleasure of being able to celebrate in a different way.
I just joined Alpha Tau Delta (ATD), a nursing fraternity whose motto is “united in service,” and last night was the initiation ceremony. I am a part of other nursing organizations, but I have never been to one that has had an actual initiation type ceremony. Deep down I felt like a little kid, excited to learn the secret password for a secret club. But what I loved most about it was the unity of our nursing school. Even though we sat at tables with friends and stuck in our little groups for our individual classes, we were all there in the room to join this organization. It was a very unifying experience to be together in a room of future nurses knowing that you were all looking to be a part of the same picture. The history of the fraternity was read, and it gave me that very ‘connected-to-history’ feeling, knowing that we were continuing on with a long standing tradition of the nurses before us.

Maybe I am a bit sentimental, but I think it’s these sorts of things that unite us as nursing students. Not just ATD, or other nursing organizations, but these moments when we’re joining together to work toward a common goal: making a difference in the lives of others. When you realize you’re connected with the history of nursing, and shaping its future all at once. It’s part of what separates us from other professions. We have a long history of nurses that came before us, and the future ahead of us, and we’re the ones that need to lead the way.