I would not be the nurse, educator, leader, or person I am today without the emergency nurses I have met throughout my career.

Some of you trained me.

Some of you worked beside me.

Some of you challenged me.

Some of you disagreed with me.

Some of you encouraged me when I wasn’t entirely sure of myself.

Some of you opened doors.

And some of you probably have no idea that something you said or did stayed with me.

That is one of the beautiful things about this profession.

We shape each other.

I have learned clinical skills from emergency nurses.

But I have also learned how to advocate.

How to lead.

How to have difficult conversations.

How to laugh during incredibly difficult shifts.

How to walk into the next patient’s room after something devastating happened in the room before it.

How to say, “I need help.”

And how to recognize when someone else needs help but hasn’t figured out how to ask.

Emergency nursing has given me far more than a career.

It has given me a community.

I will continue being proud to call myself an emergency nurse.

To everyone who has been part of my journey: thank you.

And to the emergency nurses I haven’t met yet, I hope our paths cross someday.

There is still so much work for all of us to do together.

Happy Emergency Nurses Week!