It’s a statement we hear people mutter these days, sometimes in sorrow or disbelief. And in some respects, it’s no wonder amid a recent resurgence of COVID-19, heartbreaking instability in Afghanistan and Haiti, the continued and unjust assault of racism and murder in our communities of color, the ongoing threats to the health of women, the disparities in our LGBTQ and other communities, and the fearsome brutality that is our warming planet.
These are difficult times to begin a new school year, with so much unsettled and unknown. But this is also familiar terrain for nurses, and those who support and champion them, as each of us do here at MGH Institute of Health Professions School of Nursing and at other nursing programs across the country. The moment, it strikes me, is not unlike a clinician’s initial walk into a patient room: mask on, hands gloved, senses alert, heart open, back strong.
Our core values and mission at the MGH Institute tell a story of the path we’ll take together: that we’ll lead with vigor and compassion, care for people with respect and across difference, and build equitable and supportive environments for all nursing faculty, staff, and students (through the exemplary work of our JEDI program and its leader, Dr. Kimberly Truong). We’ll collaborate across the professional aisle, catalyze change and compel discovery through nursing science, and build understanding of and solutions for the forces of climate change (thanks to leadership from our school’s Center for Climate Change, Climate Justice, and Health).
We will create spaces where belonging and acceptance are the rule. Where good intentions are transformed into meaningful action. We will, as I like to say, be nurses OUT LOUD.
Students with us for the first time and those who’ve returned after a year of virtual learning are committed, present, and eager: we are thrilled to see you. Our talented alumni on the front lines of care remain compassionate and steadfast. And our extraordinary and passionate faculty and staff continue their work to inform, inspire, challenge, and lead.
What we do on this day and each day that follows has everything to do with who we are as a community and as human beings. We are showing up together doing work that matters so incredibly – perhaps more than it ever has.
I look back on my own life as a boy growing up in rural Oklahoma and am awed to find myself at the helm of a storied institution such as ours – the only academic affiliate of the Mass General Brigham system. From the time I was a 16-year-old hospital orderly until now, I know that every place a nurse stands – at a patient’s bedside, in a classroom, to the news media, in the lab, and at the boardroom table – becomes a place of strength.
I have great optimism as we begin a new year. What a time this is.
Your fan,
Dr. Ken White
Dean and Professor
School of Nursing