It’s Beyond Time to Recognize Medical Professionals

On Memorial Day we honor and cherish the fallen heroes who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we may live freely. On Veteran’s Day this fall we’ll recognize all members of the military who have served and those who are currently humbly and graciously serving our country.

In the spring we honor our mothers and in early summer we salute the great fathers. We obsess over a groundhog in early February and play silly pranks on each other on April Fool’s Day. At the end of October we’ll dress our children in witch hats and scary masks and as adults we’ll parade around bars as blood thirsty zombies.

As a society we completely embrace something called Black Friday and the increasingly popular but no less appalling Cyber Monday. Some of these days of honor and recognition are extremely deserving. Others not so much. If you ask 100 different people about the days I mentioned above, you’d get 100 different and varying responses about each day’s importance.

However, it’s time a very large segment of our society gets its proper due. The fact that these people don’t get honored with a special day is inexcusable and it needs to change. There are many different hats worn by these individuals in a widely-encompassing field so for now we’ll just call it this…

We must recognize and embrace Medical Professionals Day.

It’s for the nurse I just witnessed work from 7 a.m. one morning to 4 a.m. the next morning. Sure, she got a break so it was “only” a 20-hour shift. That’s all they would let her work consecutively. I’m pretty sure she would have gone a few more hours if needed. Oh yeah, it was a holiday weekend, too.

It’s for the doctor who tirelessly seeks the right solution and the best care possible for the patient. Even when the patient’s patience has run a little thin.

It’s for the good people in the hospital cafeteria, who cheerfully help make a sick patient’s family member get through a long day with a sense of normalcy, even when the world around that family member is anything but normal.

It’s for the food server who delivers trays to hospital rooms. These patients are sick. Their appetites are either greatly diminished, non-existent or unwillingly altered because of a medical condition. When you’re sick, your mood tends to be rather bleak. Yet, the food server comes in with a smile and is genuinely interested in the well-being of their “patient”.

It’s for the ambulance workers. The office personnel. The coders. The equipment operators. The maintenance workers. It’s for the housekeepers, who come in to clean a hospital room while I’m sure they feel like they are infringing on a patient’s personal space. Their job is very important, though, and they do it swiftly, thoroughly and with the same sense of care that is customary with all medical professionals.

It’s for everyone who chooses to work in a profession that so often goes completely unappreciated and most definitely under-appreciated. For the record, I don’t work in the medical field but I spend a ton of time in hospitals, not as a patient but as part of support and care for a loved one.

It’s time we appreciate and honor these incredibly hard workers. One problem: if a day of national recognition does eventually come about, a good number of the people being honored won’t be able to celebrate. That’s because they’ll be at work.