On the occasion of International Nurses’ Day, I extend our warmest American greetings from The Simmons College School of Nursing and Health Sciences in Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital. It has been such a joy for many of us to travel from Boston to Dhaka and establish warm professional relationships with Bangladeshi colleagues and nurses.Warm greeting to the nurses of Bangladesh
Dear Colleagues and Nursing Sisters in Bangladesh,
On the occasion of International Nurses Day, I extend our warmest American greetings from The Simmons College School of Nursing and Health Sciences in Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital. It has been such a joy for many of us to travel from Boston to Dhaka and establish warm professional relationships with Bangladeshi colleagues and nurses.
We share so much the commitment to compassionate and excellent care for our patients and a clear understanding of the profound privilege it is to care for patients and families during some of their most vulnerable moments of their lives. We recognize the difference we make as nurses with our knowledge, presence, and caring for patients, families, one another, and the world.
As we celebrate International Nurses Day, I would like to share a poem by Irish poet, John ODonohue that captures the beauty, pain, and reward of our work. I look forward to our collaborations and work together deepening. With appreciation and inspiration for all that we share now and will share in the future as we continue to grow together,
For A Nurse
John ODonohue
Your mind knows the world of illness,
The fright that invades a person
Arriving in out of the world,
Distraught and grieved by illness.
How it can strip a life of its joy,
Dim the light of the heart
Put shock in the eyes.
You see worlds breaking
At the onset of illness:
In this fragile frontier-place, your kindness
Becomes a light that consoles the brokenhearted,
Awakens within desperate storms
That oasis of serenity that calls
The spirit to rise from beneath the weight of pain,
To create a new space in the persons mind
Where they gain distance from their suffering
And begin to see the invitation
To integrate and transform it.
May you embrace the beauty in what you do
And how you stand like a secret angel
Between the bleak despair of illness
And the unquenchable light of spirit
That can turn the darkest destiny towards dawn.
May you never doubt the gifts you bring;
Rather, learn from these frontiers
Wisdom for your own heart.
May you come to inherit
The blessings of your kindness
And never be without care and love
When winter enters your own life.
