Nursing Awards - Emmitt Knows Where They Belong

Proud winners of a nursing award. At least

their trophy has relevance-looks like a bath basin.

When Emmitt Smith, the hall of fame running back for the Dallas  Cowboys received the"Galloping Gobbler" award from John Madden, he knew what to do with it. No pretentious acceptance speeches or bubbly gratitude for a meaningless award.  When Emmitt thought he was off camera that pointless award was unceremoniously deposited in it's rightful place, the garbage can.

It's too bad that some nurses lack Emmitt's judgment and discretion regarding meaningless, phoney baloney awards worth their weight in wormwood. Hospitals of today often have a shrine-like  area where garish gold plaques are displayed honoring a select group of nurses. Nothing wrong with this concept if it gives recognition to deserving nurses who have honed their technical skills to help patients, but frequently the awarding entity is far removed from patient care and  has little insight into bedside nursing excellence or comforting patients. Physicians, administrative nurses (if you could even call them nurses,) insurance companies, and the nurse academic/ office sitter complex all have very minimal working knowledge of what makes a good bedside nurse. Doctors just love nurses who know their rightful place and never question orders or call them up in the middle of the night. Administrative types view nursing through the distorted lens of corporate goals and please don't get me started on office sitters of any permutation. Discretion is the better part of valor, I keep muttering to myself. Sometimes it's better to keep my foolish mouth shut.

We certainly had nothing like this when I was a nurse. Our instructors and mentors (if you could call them that) always stressed that the satisfaction of helping patients recover from injury or ailment had to come from within. If a trauma patient walked out the door or a patient's pain was relieved, you did a good job and that was your reward.  In their mind nursing was a calling and required self motivation which was also a good reason for paying nurses a poverty wage. If you are looking for good time Charley back slapping rewards or big money you are in the wrong profession.

As a public service the OFRN institute for nursing practice is going to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to awards for nurses. If you notice any of the following words or combination of words in the criteria or award title, its of  dubious distinction: influential, pinnacle, showcase,  emerging, distinguished, rising star, engagement, transformational, breakthrough,  paradigm, cameo, illustrious, or eminent. It's time to go above and beyond or even eschew these  nonsensical awards. It's time to take a lesson from Emmitt Smith and deposit these chucklehead awards in their rightful place.

Here are a few worthy nursing awards that have straightforward criteria and reflect nursing as it's clinically practiced, untainted from pie-in-the-sky bafflegab.

The Last Nurse Standing Award... An endurance award of sorts to the scrub nurse that can hang in there on one of those knee aching  surgeries that start before sunrise and end after sunset and I'm talking about Chicago - not the Arctic circle. My personal best is close to 8 hours on a complex trauma and that's not even worth mentioning because  my mentor Nancy went for close to 12 hours on a Whipple with complications. She deserves a standing ovation and a well deserved trip to the bathroom.

The Stink Finger Statue... Goes to the nurse who never shied away from any mess-you name the body excretion and this nurse gets down to business, sans gloves. I really admired this nurse because almost everyone has an Achilles heal when it comes to messes, mine was that gooey blood/bone chip slurry mess left on the floor of the ortho room after a long,  messy case.  Blood..no problem, bone chips..no problem, but mix them together and the resultant ooze-like  combo brought me to my knees every time. Thanks to Colleen and Gail for bailing me out on this one. You deserve this and remember to refrain from sniffing those fingers.

Venous Access King or Queen...goes to the best IV starter. Bring me your hypovolemic, phlebotic and sclerotic patient and I'll slide that angio cath in faster than you can say central line.

The Sailor Award...goes to the most fluent user of off color language. I usually avoided this one because it resulted in much childhood unpleasantness if caught uttering swearwords, but I  some how felt a sense of relief when others spouted out colorful descriptive language. Nurse  Felix deserves this award for coming up with the u;timate inclusive cuss word (sh++t,f**k.G++d**n it) all in one breath. What more can I say?

Most Likely to Cry...I always admired nurses that could do this. It's better than alcohol or drugs at diffusing sadness. The most I could come up with were a couple of stray tears, but at least I tried.

Most Kind nurse...We all know one of these. This nurse is nice to everyone and always sports an infectious smile that's even visible under a mask. As nurses age this trait seems to decline although I have met a couple of these angels in white who were well into their 60s. Rita you deserve this award if you can stop puffing on that Winston long enough to claim it.

The Walking Wounded...These tough nosed, hardened nurses can work through bone on bone hip joints, unremitting Crohns Disease, or even while on chemo for aggressive cancers. Tough as nails; the primary objective is to die at the bedside with their Clinic Shoes on. I did manage to scrub on a case one day after having impacted wisdom teeth removed and I was never so grateful that it did not involve oral surgery. The pain sharpened my senses, but I would not never,  ever want anyone to work for this award.

A really good nurse will do whatever it takes to help a patient in need not because it's about award procurement, but because it's the right thing to do. The fact that the obsessive pursuit of awards leaves profound deficits in other areas of direct  nursing care is a definite reality. Emmitt got it right.