Nurses Week showcases a vibrant profession with unlimited potential

Nothing on calendar here at Scrubin gets us as revved up as Nurses Week does! Simply put, we love nurses. And happily, they love us right back. Our premier lines of scrubs and medical apparel make us an online shopping destination for nurses around the country, and it is always an honor every year to celebrate a week that recognizes the contribution these amazing professionals make all day, every day. So how about you join us May 6-12 to toast the nursing industry!

This year’s theme is Culture of Safety: It Starts with You. It all kicks off May 6^th with National RN Day. This is the first and foremost occasion for honoring our nurses. Festivities and recognition will be going nationwide, with a variety of community outreach programs and seminars.

Nursing is consistently ranked near the top of most trusted professions in America, and for good reason: their services are invaluable, not just in the tangible care they provide, but in morale and reassurance for the patient. There are 200,000 more RNs than there were 15 years ago, which tells us all we need to know about this fast-growing, vital field.

How can you help honor our nurses? Well, the American Nurses Association has a bevy of suggestions and resources, so they’re a great place to start. You also can give a shout out on your social media platforms on May 6. Also, if there are any nurses in your life, be sure offer a warm thank you for the service they render us all!

Because there are so many career paths for nurses now, from Chief Nursing Officers to Chief Nursing Informatics Officers at the administrative level all the way through Med-Surg, Emergency and other hospital departments, Nurses Week has several sub-categories these days. Here’s a few of those:

On May 8, it’s National Student Nurses Day. If you know a hardworking student nurse, take the time to tip your hat. Again, post on social media. Learn more about the National Student Nurses Association and discover the ways our student nurses are helping to create a culture of safety and good health.

Every Wednesday within Nurses Week brings National School Nurse Day. School nurses are on the front lines, tending daily to our most precious natural resource, our students. Giving flu shots and other immunizations, administering screenings, monitoring dietary needs, and dealing with the various accidents and bumps and scrapes kids have been known to sustain are just some of their duties. Furthermore, student nurses often serve double duty, contributing to the mental and emotional care of disadvantaged students, kids from broken or abusive homes. They are kind caregivers and in some sad cases the only health-care professional a child ever sees. Please remember these generous souls and mark May 11^th on your calendar this year. School nurses are most definitely worth it!

And as in every year, Nurses Week wraps up with Florence Nightingale’s birthday on May 12. Florence Nightingale is known as the mother of the nursing profession, and is every bit to nurses what George Washington is to presidents. As such, May 12 also marks International Nurses Day, marking the contributions nurses make the world over, on every continent. Nurses are particularly vital, and needed evermore, in impoverished and developing regions of the world, places susceptible to rampant malnutrition, viruses and disease. The work they perform in these areas cannot possibly be overstated.

We could go on for pages about nurses, but instead we’ll stop here and get to the good stuff: Giveaways! Every day during Nurses Week, you can enter for a chance to win a gift bag or scrubs on our Facebook page. Here’s a sneak peak of what we’ve put together for you, check out facebook each day for more!

Celebrate Occupational Therapists and their work during April!

Occupational therapy as a practice and treatment doesn’t get anywhere near the recognition that it should, so April seems a fine time to change that. Every year, Occupational Therapy Month is a time devoted to educating the general public about the work OC's do, what occupational therapy consists of and a look at all the people they treat and help. Scrubin is excited to do our part to highlight this invaluable aspect of public health.

OK, so just what is occupational therapy? A surprisingly high percentage of people don’t know the answer to that question. In a nutshell, occupational therapy involves treating people of all ages through the therapeutic and holistic use of daily activities. Occupational therapists help disabled kids meet the challenge of schoolwork, assist people who have been in accidents return to a full, productive life and work with seniors coping with the changes brought on by age. Occupation therapists, in short, help quality people lead quality lives.

Their treatments cover a gamut of options, centered on respectful care and homeopathic methods: developing new skill-sets, furthering cognitive awareness, always accenting the individuality and needs of the particular patient.

So much of what OCs do depends upon comprehensive evaluation, not only to determine the patient’s needs and maximize treatment solutions, but also to know the patient’s goals. That is one of the unique things about occupation therapy — the patient is a collaborator in the process, always informing and guiding the practice rather than simply being administered to passively.

Are you an occupational therapist? If so, click here for a quick rundown of 10 things you can do to get the word out about your profession this month. Do you have a testimonial about how occupational therapy helped improve your life, or the quality of life for someone close to you? Share it with us this month on social media!

Community organizations — perhaps your local YMCA, or a service club like the Kiwanis or Rotary— may well have events for Occupational Therapy Month. Check them out and see if you can plug in. And if you discover centers and places offering occupational therapy as a free service — serving the children of lower-income families, for instance, who have learning challenges — think about make a financial contribution to help continue the invaluable work, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.

And if you’re interested in occupational therapy as a career, this is a great time to dive into the numerous educational forums and outreach opportunities offered by the American Occupational Therapy Association and learn more. This is a challenging and fast-growing field, where the potential for fulfilling careers abounds.