Cool ways that Nurses Week will be celebrated in 2011

And beyond
The International Council of Nurses, the head office of which is located in Geneva, Switzerland, commemorates International Nurses Day (it always falls on May 12, as you might have guessed) by producing and distributing the International Nurses Day Kit. The kit addresses a different theme or health issue every year, and is intended to be used by nurses and nursing associations. This year, the title of the kit is “Closing the gap: Increasing access and equity.” Your nursing association will likely receive a copy, but you can also download it from the council’s website.

And of all the nursing events to be held in May, the most special one may well be the annual service in Westminster Abbey in London—after all, Florence Nightingale was a Brit. This year, the service takes place on May 11 and is entitled “Florence Nightingale’s Life and Work Remembered.” It will include the Procession of the Lamp, during which a symbolic lamp, like the one Nightingale carried with her as she made her nightly rounds during the Crimean War (this is what led to her being dubbed “The Lady with the Lamp”), will be carried from the Florence Nightingale Chapel and placed on the high altar of the abbey by the Dean of Westminster.