A Letter From Mairead
Dear Colleagues,
I write my final letter to you as your chief nurse with appreciation and gratitude to each and every nurse of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
For the past five years, my work as your chief nurse has been the work of the Department of Nursing. This work was to assure excellent nursing care to patients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; to create a vision for the Department of Nursing that ensures a healthy and ethical professional practice environment and that reflects the minds and hearts of nurses across BWH; to build an infrastructure to achieve this vision and that supports a community of professional nurses; and to
generate new knowledge to advance the discipline of nursing within BWH and the profession.
I have been guided in this work by some fundamental beliefs and by what I have learned from you–that no nurse is left alone in their practice, that the voice of the nurse is instrumental in shaping patient care and the practice environment and that leadership’s role is to ensure an environment where each patient and family receives excellent care and each nurse can develop their practice.
We have done very good work together preparing a strong foundation on which your next chief nurse can build. I am confident that each BWH nurse and nurse leader will continue to build on this foundation. My legacy lives through you and the Department of Nursing, which is poised to do very great things.
I am extraordinarily grateful to have had the honor and privilege to serve as your chief nurse. You will always have my sincerest respect, appreciation and gratitude for embarking on and continuing this journey and, most especially, for the work that you do each and every day for the good of patients and their families.
I will always remain proud to be a BWH nurse.