CLEVELAND — The twists and turns of 2020 are leading one profession to come full circle.  

What You Need To Know

  • COVID-19 pandemic forced nurses to be innovative to face the new challenges

  • More nurses are now caring for people in their homes, thanks to the coronavirus

  • 2020 is the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife in honor of Florence Nightingale's 200th birthday

Jennifer Carpenter said she was born to be a nurse.

“I was just always a person that liked to fix things and liked to care for other people,” she said.

And she’s been doing just that since she first put on the uniform nearly three decades ago, but this year, things have been a little different.

“2020 has been an interesting year, to say the least,” Carpenter said.

It’s actually the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, as named by the World Health Assembly in honor of the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday.

“So, it’s a little bit ironic and a little bit apropos that we turned into really the year of the nurse and the midwife,” Carpenter said.

When the global COVID-19 pandemic called upon nurses to care for their communities in a new way, the caregivers stepped up to the front lines.

“Faced the unknown in ways that most of us haven’t had to do in our career,” said Carpenter.

As interim Chief Nurse Executive for University Hospitals, Carpenter said she’s seen her colleagues in the nursing community rise to the challenges.

“There’s a thing called the ‘nursing process,’ which is, you assess the situation, you create a plan, you act,” she said. “You reassess and you change the plan. And you do that over and over again.”

Standard procedures that Carpenter said have led to creative solutions during unprecedented times, and proved the power of working together with others inside the hospital and around the world.

“We have implemented some things that probably in the normal world would have taken months or a year because the red tape was cut out,” she said. “There’s been very few other things we’ve focused on this year.”

The focus on the Coronavirus has brought nursing back to basics, Carpenter said.

“Nursing began as people caring for a community, dealing with public health crises, caring for people in their homes,” she said.

But, caregivers need care, too.  

“People have seen things and lived through things that take a toll,” Carpenter said.

And, with the continuing rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, there is hope for a happier and healthier new year.