The social media nursing community WeNurses has released a list of #100outstandingnurses who were nominated by their peers on the site Twitter.
“The aim was to shine a light on some of the unsung heroes of nursing”
WeNurses
WeNurses asked its followers to tell them about nurses they thought were “outstanding” based on a set of four criteria.
These were having made a difference to patient care at a population level, a difference to the understanding of best nursing practice for achieving improvement, a difference to public understanding of nursing and having positively promoted nursing.
All the nominations were then reviewed and independently scored from one to four on the extent to which the criteria were met through the nomination, with the list ultimately whittled down to the final 100 names.
Nominations that did not meet the criteria were excluded. The group said nobody “won” and it was “important to stress that every nurse who was nominated was outstanding”. “We drew a line at 100 because we thought that would recognise a good number of people,” it added.
WeNurses said the initiative, which was started just before the Christmas period, was sparked by a conversation on Twitter that had highlighted a lack of nurses in popular end of year lists celebrating individual achievements during the previous 12 months.
It further explained that in cases where nurses did feature in a list they often held senior or national roles and, therefore, it wanted to help those that were not largely known to be celebrated by their peers.
Teresa Chinn, speaking on behalf of WeNurses, said: “The aim was to shine a light on some of the unsung heroes of nursing, nurses who are admired and respected by their colleagues as being great at what they do.
“It was not to identify the best of the best but to celebrate and make visible some of the amazing nurses we have,” said Ms Chinn, who highlighted that she had collated the list with Dr Elaine Maxwell, Professor June Girvin and Ellen Nicholson.
“It is a huge honour and very humbling to be one of three students nominated and included in this list”
Craig Davidson
According to WeNurses, it had responses from over 1,500 people on social media who engaged with the initiative.
She told Nursing Times: “Most nurses probably wouldn’t think about putting themselves forward for an award of some kind, and probably don’t see themselves as doing anything out of the ordinary, but their colleagues recognise something that bit special. We wanted to try and find a few of those people.”
The online community also wanted to stress that every nurse who was nominated is “outstanding”. WeNurses added that it trusted those who sent in nominations and felt that drawing the line at 100 would recognise a good number of people.
Among those included in the list was Nursing Times student editor Craig Davidson, who said: “Coming into the profession as a mature student, I finally feel as though I’ve found where I belong, so it is a huge honour and very humbling to be one of three students nominated and included in this list.
“I encounter outstanding students and nurses who inspire me every day and I cannot wait to become a registered nurse this year,” Mr Davidson added.
“Honoured, grateful and humbled to have been included in this list”
Brendan McCormack
Also recognised for their contribution to nursing in 2018 were two #150leaders awards recipients, head of nursing Professor Brendan McCormack and student nurse Leanne Patrick.
Writing about his inclusion in the list on Twitter, Professor McCormack said: “Wow. Honoured, grateful and humbled to have been included in this list. A ‘new year honour’ if ever there was one! Thank you to those who nominated me and selected me.”
Student nurse Ms Patrick also expressed her achievement, writing: “Blown away to be included in this list with such inspiring and impactful nurses. Even more so to be one of 3 students alongside @CraigDavidson85 and @C_Carmichael83 – well done all and thank you to those who nominated me.”
WeNurses said it was “overwhelmed” with the number of nurses making a difference who were almost unknown outside their work place.
It added: “As a profession, we need to celebrate all our colleagues more and we hope this list has achieved this. We were thrilled with the reaction to the premise of a list of largely unknown nurses being recognised by their peers.”
A full list of nurses included in the #100outstandingnurses list can be found here.
WeNurses
The #100outstandingnurses criteria
WeNurses
The list of #outstandingnurses
https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/subscriber-news/outstanding-nurses-recognised-in-social-media-end-of-year-list/7027283.article