Out of a checkered past, the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday has come to represent a time to enjoy and appreciate the bonds of family and friends, and indulge in the bounties that characterize a celebratory meal. However, as nurses this year we cannot in good conscience ignore the realities that have been heaped on too many people living within our borders, and many others around the world. These realities are endangering the health, safety and very lives of people who have been and are our neighbors: people who harvest the many foods that adorn our tables of plenty; far too many people who will not have food on their table for this holiday that falls on the 4th to the last day of the month; people who are at risk of deportation when they take their children to school; too many of our own colleagues who, together with their families, are in danger because of their appearance. Tragically, this is a challenge all over the globe and the U.S. government has a major role in worsening a global hunger crisis.

As nurses, regardless of our political leanings, we cannot stand by in the face of the dangers that our local and global neighbors and colleagues are facing. We cannot ignore the atrocities that force hunger on populations around the world. The foundations of our discipline demand practical and ethical responses to the plight of our neighbors at this time.

My own nursing education was laser-focused on understanding the reality of those in our care. In 2018 I reflected on this focus in an editorial published in Advances in Nursing Science:

“When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Hawaii (UH) in the early 1960s, one of the lessons that were imprinted on us was the importance of believing the patient, of understanding that the patient’s perceptions were that person’s truth. Our curriculum was modeled after that of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)—a program led by the great Lulu Wolf Hassenplug. The UCLA faculty and students at the time included key figures who would become leaders in the development of nursing knowledge—Dorothy Johnson, Sister Callista Roy, and Betty Neuman. My senior medical-surgical instructor, Noreen Meinhart, had just completed her master’s degree in nursing at UCLA, along with her close friend and classmate Afaf Meleis. In the UH curriculum, consistent with the emerging ideas of the UCLA faculty, the principles of psychiatric/mental health nursing were integrated throughout each and every course—both didactic and clinical—and so the message of understanding, and believing, the patient’s perspective was thoroughly engrained in our thinking. At the same time, we were taught, and expected to apply in practice, certain scientific facts and theories—those principles underlying the best of nursing practice as presented in our main text—the Principles and Practices of Nursing by Bertha Harmer and Virginia Henderson. We acquired the ability to balance a respect for the person’s own perceptions and truth, while at the same time bringing to the situation our understanding and appreciation of scientific facts and theories. We learned, in essence, the distinction between “truth” and “fact,” and how to assess the validity of each.”

From the Editor, Advances in Nursing Science 41(3):p 199-200, July/September 2018. 

Our 1964 graduating class wore one of the symbols that marks nursing’s history – the nursing cap and uniform The cap was abandoned a few years later and the uniform traded for scrubs, but we have never abandoned the nursing values that compel us to act when health and well-being are threatened. As Jane Georges noted in her blog post in April of this year – “they never should have given us uniforms if they didn’t want us to be an army!”

We are now called upon to become an army dedicated to protecting, supporting, and providing aide and comfort to those who are suffering and in danger at this time in our country’s history – at the hands of our government’s cruelty. Emancipatory Knowing in nursing provides a frame of reference to guide our actions at this critical period of time. Emancipatory knowing prompts us to ask the question: ‘What is wrong with this picture?” and then take action to change the situation in ways that promote health and well-being for all. Jane Georges’ Emancipatory Theory of Compassion points to actions in response to human suffering including equitable healthcare policy, social justice, and emancipatory practice that seeks to decrease suffering.

This Thanksgiving season, and into the seasonal holidays and the new year, let us join together to stop the onslaught of threats to health and well being in our country and around the world, and to protect and care for those who are most in danger. We can take action to oppose policies and actions that endanger our neighbors. We can reach out as never before to protect our neighbors who are endangered. We can assist with every effort to provide food for everyone in our communities.

“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something” – Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General

Afternote: Here are links to information related to each of the nursology scholars mentioned above.

Dorothy Johnson,
Sister Callista Roy
Betty Neuman
Afaf Meleis
Jane Georges