Nursing Named Most Trusted Profession for 22nd Consecutive Year

Nursing has been named America’s most trusted profession for the 22nd year in an annual Gallup poll of the country’s most honest and ethical professions.

 

It’s an enviable honor, for many reasons. Trust is difficult to earn, and easy to lose, especially in health care. To be America’s most trusted profession for almost a quarter century is an unparalleled and hard-earned achievement. It’s an accomplishment to which every nurse everywhere contributes every day.

 

People literally trust us with their lives. They trust us to correctly assess their condition, determine whether they’re improving, spot any threatening changes, give the correct medications in the correct dose at the right time, and provide empathetic, compassionate care in which listening and responding are as important as diagnosis and medication.

 

Increasingly, nurses are trusted to be primary care providers, nurse-anesthetists, and other providers of advanced clinical skills. We are trusted because we are knowledgeable, educated, and dedicated. We are recognized as the cornerstone of the medical care team.

 

And we are trusted not only as clinicians, but also as researchers discovering new knowledge, and as advocates who bring the case of better, more equitable access to healthcare for all to policymakers, elected officials, and the public at large.

 

Look at photos from the worst of the pandemic crisis and you almost always see nurses in the picture. People trust our profession because we have always been there for them, no matter how challenging the situation. Ours is a profession that began in war and has been steadfast in providing care through epidemics, pandemics, financial crises, and vast changes in the health care system. Nurses still go to war, and they go to countries around the globe in peace, providing care and sharing knowledge in under resourced areas.

 

We as a profession should place great value on the recognition we consistently receive as America’s most trusted profession. 

 

It’s trust we have earned and continue earning every day.