Revolutionary Hope

Nursing Needs to Get Back in the Game

In the words of Paulo Freire (Author of the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Pedagogy of Hope - highly recommend both), “Hope is an ontological need.” But not just any hope, revolutionary hope. The kind of hope that demands action, resists apathy, and calls us to remake systems that have failed. Nursing needs this kind of hope now more than ever.

We’ve seen the headlines… “GALLOP POLLS… since 2002…” for decades, nurses have been viewed as the most trusted and ethical professionals in America. Yet that trust hasn’t translated into equitable leadership, policy influence, or systemic power. We are simultaneously essential and undervalued, educated and ignored, numerous and underrepresented.

We’re watching our profession get pulled into a tug-of-war between burnout and resilience rhetoric, between bedside demands and boardroom decisions made without us, between social justice commitments and bureaucratic stagnation.

We’ve been sidelined in a game we need to lead.

Revolutionary Hope Isn’t Passive!

This isn’t the kind of hope that waits for systems to change. It’s the kind that nurses must embody to reclaim our influence. Revolutionary hope means naming the harm and all out systems that exploit nurses while preaching wellness; refusing the “old guard” silence, apathy, and complacency and actively challenge outdated hierarchies that stifle innovation and diverse leadership in the name of process, decorum, and rules set by those looking to oppress and exclude; rebuilding our power base, from union halls to legislative offices, we need nurses in every room where decisions are made; mentoring with purpose to create networks that actively dismantle gatekeeping and uplift new voices, and create new opportunities; radicalize our education and purposefully infuse nursing curricula with policy, equity, and community organizing, not just clinical competency… we are more than staff caged in hospital walls!!!

To re-enter the game, we must STOP playing by rules that weren’t built for us, designed by those themselves oppressed and unaware, bowing to others in the name of courtesy and respect. Revolutionary hope insists we, mobilize collectively, reclaim our voice in policy, practice, and public discourse, redefine what leadership looks like in nursing, it's not just titles; it's impact, center the profession, not just the job of nursing but the PROFESSION, our future lies in how we shape systems, not how we survive them!

It’s time to stop hoping someone else will fix it. Revolutionary hope starts with us, those tired of the rhetoric that has kept us bound and gagged, the bedside RN, the DNP and Ph.D., the educator, the practitioner, the organizer, the nurse veteran, the new grad, those with hopes of joining our ranks.

Nursing’s legacy is not one of silence. It’s one of resistance, advocacy, and care that changes lives. As I’ve said before, the profession has lost its path, buried in its own bureaucracy, formalities, and etiquette! Leaders with learned silence… fear of being ostracized!

Let’s stop asking for a seat at tables incapable of change, it can not begin to comprehend!