Please know that even if you can’t visit your loved ones, conscious or not, nurses still quietly comb their hair, talk to them, tuck them in warm blankets & maintain their humanity.

These are some of the most important things we do, even if - especially if - no one sees us.

There is so much quiet dignity maintained in dark, still rooms between unconscious patients & their nurses. We talk about their families, we explain what we’re doing, we apologize for painful interventions...and we SEE them even when no one, including the patient, can see us.

Much of nursing is done behind the scenes - behind respectfully closed curtains, inside the always humming mind of a busy nurse, quietly whispered between nurses bouncing ideas off one another. The best parts of nursing are done from the heart, with the mind, through the hands.