Nurses Week 2024: What Is a Nurse's Superpower?

What is your Superpower?  A question often asked in  job interviews.

This question got me thinking: What is a nurse’s superpower? We are often typecast as Superheroes or, my least favorite, angels.  How do we define ourselves?  
 
While I certainly cannot speak for our entire profession, after a long contemplation period on this question, this is what I came up with as a superpower nurses possess.
 
What is a nurse's Superpower, you ask? While I cannot speak for our entire profession, this is what I came up with after a period of contemplation:
 
A nurse’s superpower is the ability to hold sacred space while simultaneously blending the knowledge we have attained, being present with a patient or community, and allowing the divine to work through us to heal.
 
Before I dive deeper to explain, let me explain the difference between healing and curing.  Curing is the elimination of the signs and symptoms of disease.  Healing goes deeper, more complete, and may or may not include curing. Healing, as defined by the American Holistic Nurses Association is: “the return of the integrity and wholeness of the natural state of an individual; the emergence of right relationship at, between, and among all levels of the human being; the process of bringing together parts of one’s self (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, relational) at deeper levels of inner knowing, leading to an integration and balance, with each part of having equal importance and value.” (B.M. Dossey, Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practice, 5th Ed., ed. B. M. Dossey and L. Keegan (Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers), 2009, p. 721.
 
As nurses, we can stand and be present with intense suffering or lost souls and guide them to the light.  Guide them to information that they can use to help heal themselves.  We provide people with hands-on care, such as wound dressing changes, suctioning sputum from clogged lungs, or applying a colostomy pouch to prevent stool from running down their abdomen, thus allowing them to heal and have optimal functioning.  We are the people at your child’s school ready to tend to their needs, whether as simple as applying a Band-Aid or administering life-saving medications.   We are present in Emergency Rooms, Urgent Care Clinics, and On the Streets, offering healthcare to the houseless.  We serve in Congress to ensure policies are in place to enable us to live a healthy lifestyle.  We are everywhere living beings are, including forests and wild waters.  Through the divine, we provide relief from suffering, making the hard times of life a little more bearable.  We are astutely aware of the needs that need to be in place to prevent disease and advocate fiercely for these.  When people near the end of their lifecycle, we are there helping them and their loved ones through the transference to the other side.
 
The ability to do all this must be cultivated, just as it takes time for a tree to grow sturdy and have strong roots. Thus, seasoned, experienced nurses are essential in this time of chaos and transition. At the same time, we wholeheartedly welcome the many new, fresh perspectives new nurses bring and their eagerness to help improve lives. 
 
Not everyone can be a nurse.  We invite you to join us if you see yourself having compassion, courage, and intelligence.  If, however, you are one of the many who say, “I could never be a nurse”, we understand that, and we hope you apply your unique gifts in a way that satisfies you and contributes to making life on earth a wonderful experience.