“Nursing, like poetry, is the place where metaphorical and literal meanings cross borders. A hole in the heart is a hole in the heart; the nurse is the thing at the center: between the surgeon’s skill at fixing the literal hole, and the patient’s anxiety and loss, the metaphorical hole. Nursing is—or should be—an indiscriminate act of caring, compassion and empathy. It should be a reminder of our capacity to love one another. If the way we treat our most vulnerable is a measure of our society, then the act of nursing itself is a measure of our humanity. Yet it is the most undervalued of all the professions.”
Christie Watson