A Brand Called 'Nursing"

“Pack up and go home.”

A needle, safety pin, thread, small pair of scissors, tape measure; the Kit, as it was called was carefully scrutinized as we, student nurses, lined up in the nursing station before our clinical instructor for physical inspection; not a hair’s strand touching the collar, hence, neatly combed and piled up in a bun, no jewelries of any kind, no colorful hairpins, white uniform clean, starched and neatly ironed, stockings superbly white, shoes white polished or washed. Fingernails trimmed. No nail polish. Absolutely colorless. No giggles. No holding hands. No high heels. Flat shoes.

But wait! Colors! Where were the colors on our faces? “You look paler than your patient. Go and apply make-up and lipstick. Make it light and come back. Or else pack up and go home. The door is still wide open.” That was our clinical instructor with her nursing discipline at her best. That was every day. Every morning. A ritual. Till we all got into this very discipline itself.

As I reminisce this, I look at myself in the mirror. What has become of the girl who was once adorned with the biggest ribbons her mother could ever stitched, those colorful, sparkling earrings dangling cutely, the cute hairpins and hair clips, the ever so colorful head bands? And the long, loosely, flowing hair? Those lovely heeled shoes and sandals?

The face that looked back at me was that of a very plain Jane. Gone were all those lovely things that were once a part of the ensemble which made one feel good at looking good.

Today, that practice remains intact. I continue to collect an assortment of hairclips, ribbons, bits and pieces of jewelry, lipsticks. All those lovely stuff I love. Except that I can’t put them on anymore. I don’t put them on anymore. Nor the heeled shoes.

“You look paler than your patient. Go and apply make-up and lipstick.
Make it light and come back. Or else pack up and go home. The door is still wide open.”

That was the school of thought. The dialogue that was the prayer. An image that was the Discipline embedded in every upcoming nurse. A discipline to carry the name of the nurse proudly.

A brand. The image of the nurse. And that of the profession.