The Art of Nursing Premier Post

     Wow!  I can't believe that I have decided to start a blog about my nursing dedicated artwork.  How did this all start?  With a nurse and a nurse's cap, of course.  Several years ago I had a life altering event.  I was involved in a head on auto accident (not my fault!).  The resulting injuries were multiple and changed my life forever.  I spent a lot of time undergoing reconstructive surgeries and seeing health care providers with many of them being registered nurses.  I had a lot of time to think about myself as a clinician and to experience first hand the clinical expertise of other nurses.  Without my glasses, on pain medication, sleepy, or just not paying attention, I rarely knew who the registered nurse was.  This started me to thinking about the cap as a traditional symbol of nursing and what my cap had meant to me.  Several years later and after a lot of research, it became apparent to me that although the cap is recognized world over as a symbol of nursing, there isn't one in sight nor has anyone in the United States (that I know of) made a dedicated effort to preserve the images. Within a few years the only reminder of the nurse's cap will be faded photographs.
     I started oil painting as a way to cope with the inactivity imposed upon me by my injuries, surgeries, and rehabilitation.  One of the first things I painted was my nurse's cap.  I loved having it and felt a great many emotions as I would look at it.  For me the cap symbolized so much. The cap was a part of our professional history.  For every nurse for almost 150 years the cap was a symbol of professionalism, right of passage, affiliation, unity, commonality, rank, learning, training, commitment, accountability, identity, standards, and a connection to all those nurses that had worn the cap before.  Each cap was also a unique identifier of the nurse's affiliation on a smaller scale with a specific nursing program.  I wore my cap with a great sense of pride for all it symbolized and communicated.  Through my experience and research I identified a need to acknowledge and preserve the images of these honorable and dignified symbols of our professions' past.  I also began to think of nursing caps as unique, creative, wearable pieces of art.  I had found the perfect combination.  My love for nursing encompassed in the symbol of the cap and my love for painting.  I hope to research and paint many, many caps to showcase the common bond and the diversity within nursing to preserve these images for nursing history.  I also plan to donate my paintings to a center for nursing history in the hopes that they will be preserved for generations of nurses.