THE CENTURY OF NURSING

Abstract

More than 200 years have passed since the advent of modern nursing, and despite so much time, now and then we have been through challenging and unimaginable situations. But, in times when centenary professions perish and new ones emerge, what will become of us? Although we are being recognized in 2020, through the celebration of the international year of Nursing by the World Health Organization, will we be forgotten in the future, or recognized by history?
Before answering these questions, it is important to revisit the data on the profile of nursing in Brazil, which point out that our profession is formed mostly by women, blacks and browns. Populations that have historically experienced inequality, prejudice and, why not say, social misery in its broadest sense.
Knowing this, it is up to the current generation of nurses to empower themselves over their own history, so that we can modify the future and repair the ills and injustices of the past. May our professionals start to recognize historical nursing figures like Mary Jane Seacole, whose past was long forgotten, because despite all her efforts in the Crimean war, she was refused on Florence's team for the simple fact of being black. This shows that it is time to write a fairer story, so that we are not affected by the same mistakes of the past.
Given this, do we still neglect, without realizing it, people who would be able to change what we now know as nursing? Do they shut us up, or worse, do we let ourselves be silent about what we can and cannot do about our own profession? Was it necessary for a pandemic to finally be recognized as essential for a service that we carried out as a science 200 years ago? Such a change can only occur when we struggle and empower ourselves as an essential professional science; and we hope it won't take another 200 years for that to happen.
This struggle and empowerment will put us at the forefront of challenges, which will not be more difficult than we live in our past of resistance to setbacks, but which may, once and for all, be our greatest contribution to strengthening the profession, and the sustainable development of the global population.
We also hope that, in the future, you, reader, will not have to face any of the problems raised in this text, and that it will only be a text about how we were too busy with so many responsibilities of the profession, and that, for this reason, we lacked a a little bit of time for greater engagement to get you where you are. But, if you have identified yourself, you are responsible for this change, so, get your work started, do research and answer problems, always be a reference wherever you go, and don't let yourself be shaken by anything. Our Nursing depends on the now.
We hope that this year of nursing recognition will turn into a century of celebration.