Nurses play key role on 'front lines' of Ebola outbreak, Nursing dean says

In a letter to the editor published in The Baltimore Sun last week, Patricia Davidson, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, discusses the critical role nurses are playing in addressing the Ebola outbreak.

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From "This is not crazy; this is nursing":

Nurses are so often the first to reach the front lines of an epidemic, the first to recognize and try to relieve patient pain and the first to get to work healing the sick regardless of the challenges and obstacles. Whether it's in Atlanta or Africa, nurses are right now at the bedside dealing with the danger of a disease spread through contact with blood, vomit, saliva and diarrhea. So why on earth would nurses be there?

Because that is nursing: sometimes dirty and dangerous, always physically demanding, and rewarding as hell. We were never promised it would be easy, or safe. They didn't tell us that because nurses don't wait to be told. We are called, we act and we save lives.