From the Nightingale Pledge to a Nurse Practitioner’s Oath

What virtues should shape nurse practitioner (NP) practice?

It is a question I have wrestled with for years. I suspect that NPs will answer it differently depending on their experiences, backgrounds, cultures, and moral commitments. Some may disagree with parts of the answer I eventually reached. That is okay. My purpose is not to provide a final oath for all NPs but to invite reflection on what kind of health care professionals we aspire to become.

My journey into nursing was quite personal.

Image via Shutterstock

When my friend and I were nine years old, he died of relapsed lymphoma. He spoke of the compassion that nurses, physicians, and other health care professionals demonstrated as they cared for him. After he died, I realized that I wanted to honor God and my friend by identifying with one of the most trusted healing and caring professions—nursing. During my graduation ceremony, I swore to uphold the Nightingale Pledge. This solidified my identity as a nurse.

Years later, after practicing pediatric critical care as both a nurse and NP, I found myself returning to a question: What moral vision should guide my NP practice?

Physicians have long looked to the Hippocratic Oath. Nurses have the

2026-07-21T10:56:23-04:00July 21st, 2026|Ethics, Nursing|0 Comments
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Dengue Cases Are Rising: Why Every Nurse Should Be Paying Attention

A patient presents to the emergency department with fever, headache, nausea, and severe muscle pain after returning from a Caribbean cruise. A few years ago, dengue fever may not have been high on a nurse’s list of possible diagnoses. Today, it should be.

Cryoelectron microscopy renderings of mature dengue virions (DENV-1) and photo of an Aedes mosquito. (NIAID)

Dengue is the leading cause of febrile illness among travelers returning to the United States from endemic regions. According to the World Health Organization, about half of the world’s population is at risk for dengue, with an estimated 100 to 400 million infections occurring annually, although many cases likely go unreported because symptoms are mild or absent.

In a recent MMWR, 3,798 dengue cases were reported in the United States in 2024 representing a 359% increase compared to the annual average reported between 2010 and 2023. Nearly 97% of reported infections occurred in travelers, with many cases linked to destinations in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. However, locally acquired cases were also identified in Florida, California, and Texas.

Cause and Challenges

Dengue, sometimes called “breakbone fever,” is caused by one of four related […]

2026-07-14T11:03:15-04:00July 14th, 2026|infectious diseases, Nursing|0 Comments
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The Discomfort of Trying to Create Change in Health Care and Beyond

In complex systems, change takes persistence.

Over the years, coworkers have often described me as “the dog with the bone.” Once I become invested in something, I tend not to let it go. That persistence has helped me create meaningful change within health care systems. It has also shown me how much organization, follow-up, patience, and emotional stamina meaningful change often requires.

I have also learned how often the answer is no. Sometimes the “no” is direct. Other times it comes through silence. Some ideas take longer to gain traction within large organizations than people initially expect. Creating change in any environment can be difficult. In health care systems, it can feel especially challenging.

Health care organizations are responsible for large numbers of patients, employees, regulations, budgets, and risks. Decisions that appear simple from the outside often involve layers of oversight, approvals, coordination, and competing priorities that most people never see. Still, understanding those realities does not necessarily make the process less discouraging.

The temptation to give up.

I have experienced this in clinical practice when advocating for patient education initiatives, operational changes, or workflow improvements that initially seemed straightforward. In health care, even small changes can require multiple approvals, coordination across departments, competing priorities, and months […]

2026-07-06T11:31:12-04:00July 6th, 2026|career, Nursing, nursing advocacy, nursing career, Oncology nursing|0 Comments
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Men in Military, Psychiatric, and Anesthesia Nursing: A Historical Continuity

A history obscured by titles

Unidentified Civil War male nurse at Mt. Pleasant Hospital, Washington, D.C., in uniform

Men were not absent from nursing’s history. They worked in military and psychiatric hospitals, men’s wards, hospital schools of nursing for men, anesthesia departments, and nursing practice committees. However, records confined them to being known by other titles, including attendants, orderlies, hospital stewards, corpsmen, soldiers, anesthetists, and brothers. These labels mattered; they determined who was considered a nurse, allowed into professional nursing associations, and included in nursing histories.

Military hospitals and bedside work

One of the most impressive examples of this trend is military medicine, with the lines between nursing and transport, sanitation and medical care often blurred. Men carried water, changed bedding, moved the wounded, washed the soiled body, took the temperature, distributed food, helped to dress wounds, attended wounded men in their delirium, and sat with them while they died. For the U.S. Civil War, the majority of those contracted to provide nursing services for Union forces were males. Since many were soldiers, hospital stewards, or civilian helpers, the work was often remembered as military labor rather than nursing labor.

Civil War hospitals in Washington, DC, such as Armory Square Hospital, had wards filled with rows of wounded […]

2026-06-26T10:43:04-04:00June 26th, 2026|Nursing|0 Comments
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250 Years of American Nursing—and More AJN July Issue Highlights

The July issue of AJN is now live.

Here are some highlights. Some articles are open access or temporarily free; others will require log-in for access.

A Military Encampment in Hyde Park by James Malton, 1785. This drawing is featured in the Nursing the Revolution exhibit currently on view at the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. For more, see On the Cover.

In recognition of the 250th anniversary of American independence, this special issue of AJN examines nursing’s role in early U.S. history.

  • A photo-essay features images from Nursing the Revolution, an exhibit at Penn Nursing’s Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing in Philadelphia that sheds light on nursing at a time when the concept of the “professional nurse” had yet to emerge.
  • In her Guest Editorial, “American Nursing: 250 Years and Counting,” Penn Nursing professor and dean Antonia M. Villarruel urges amplification of “nursing’s past, present, and future contributions.”
  • In her Viewpoint article, “Nursing the Revolution,” J. Margo Brooks Carthon, the Barbara Bates Center’s director, calls for a reexamination of nurses’ influence on U.S. health care’s roots—and a reclaiming of this history.

Additional articles this month include a

2026-06-25T09:38:01-04:00June 25th, 2026|Nursing|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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