This week has seen the launch of a new nursing strategy which involves six words starting with C. It's a brave attempt to sum up the values that make a person a good nurse. My dad and one of my brothers are nurses, so I've got a reasonable insight, especially since the Nursing Times was significant in my ending up with sufficient grades to enter medical school.
The trouble is I'm not sure a 6cs list addresses the issue. Here's how my thinking goes.
Many of the caring professions are a "calling" - something not religious in nature but a heartfelt belief that those that have the drive can follow.
If you have that inner motivation, intrinsic drive, yearning, then pretty well regardless of conditions you will exercise your right to choose the freedom how to behave ( See Victor Frankl for details). In Frankls case selfless acts of charity in concentration camps proved that we can choose to follow our callings regardless of circumstance.
I met a nurse who always wanted to join the profession, but in his culture it was a womans job, so he became a mechanic, joined the military and then, having established his credentials, he became a nurse, and a bloody good one.
Would the 6Cs have made him that good?
If the 6Cs turn out to not be the answer can I suggest we take a leaf out of the Derren Brown play book?
Mr Brown used a mix of psychological techniques to expose an atheist to a "religious conversion" - in effect a moment of insight/ joy/ karma that could, if followed up, have resulted in the atheist developing a belief in God.
Perhaps we ought to address the psychology of our staff and seek to promote and reinforce the feeling of a devotion or calling to the nursing profession.
I'm not advocating brainwashing or NLP, simply the idea that we should recognise our nursing sisters and brothers as having a calling, treat them with the respect due to one who puts others before themselves and maybe they will respond by putting others before themselves.