One of my earliest memories is being 4 years old and being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without hesitation, I answered: a nurse. From that point on, any time I was asked, the answer was almost always the same. When my friends were carrying around their Barbies and Hot Wheels, I was carrying around my stethoscope. When my friends were playing house, I was playing hospital.
You have to understand that for a long time, the hospital was my house. I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 17 months in a very traumatic turn of events and suffered from complex partial seizures that landed me in and out of the hospital throughout my childhood. Every new visit was another episode in being restrained because I was trying to fight the scary things that no one was explaining to me.
In the midst of all the chaos, the nurses were the ones doing their best to calm my mother and me. A nurse practically set the course of my life when she told my mother, who was too afraid to give me that first shot for fear of hurting me, “Either you’ll do it, or she’ll die.” She was the only one who could convince my mother to do what needed to be done.
It was also a nurse who was determined for me to succeed when I walked into her office at school one day for my scheduled blood sugar check. As I stood there with a finger presented, she said, “Check your blood sugar.” I said, “But I don’t know how.” She said, “Today you do.” From that day forward, I did.
I wanted to do for others what those nurses did for me. I was determined to help others feel “normal.” I was going to provide the education that I longed for and needed. I was going to make diabetes not feel so big. What I didn’t realize was that I, too, was signing up for leadership. I must tell you, I’m not one of those people who ever really “actively sought” leadership, but it just kind of happened. All the nurses who have helped me along the way were leaders, whether they wanted to be or not. If you’re one of my students, you’ve probably heard me say several times, “When you leave here, you will be the leader in the room whether you want to be or not.”
But what does that have to do with Sigma? My colleagues talked about Sigma with pride, but there was something else. I noticed they seemed to have a grasp on evidence-based practice and an insight on the profession that I hadn’t considered and didn’t realize I wanted. They knew who the trailblazers of the profession were, and they themselves were trailblazers. They knew which questions to ask and who to ask. I wanted that, too, but I didn’t know how to get it. The Sigma nurses certainly seemed to know, so when I was invited to join during my MSN program, I said, “Heck yes!” Before I attended my induction ceremony, I decided to go to the greatest scholarly source of them all—Google—to find out what the words Sigma Theta Tau stood for. I’m really glad I did, because I learned that the words translate to something that I really resonate with: Love, Courage, and Honor.
That’s why I came to nursing in the first place! If I had to guess, I bet something about those three qualities brought a lot of you here as well. To be totally transparent, it takes a lot of love and courage to bring honor to what you do. And given the current state of affairs, it takes a lot of love, honor, and courage to stay. But here you are. And here I am, grateful for the opportunity to do exactly what I wanted to do—but better.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Am I really the honor society type?” Or, “Okay, I’ve paid my fees. I’m getting inducted. Now what?” I’ll answer that with a question: “How can you make things better?” For yourself, for patients, for the profession, and for the world.
These questions will be answered with time and experience, and in a way that only you can do with Sigma by your side. You have leadership opportunities from the local level all the way to the international level. You have access to a professional network of over 135,000 nurses to connect and seek support. (I personally subscribe to the critical care and pediatrics practice communities of interest on The Circle.) You have access to peer-reviewed journals that you may even find yourself contributing to at some point. You also have financial resources. As a current PhD student, my advisor is encouraging me to seek grant support from Sigma to continue my work, and that’s something we’ll be working on soon. Sigma is an organization that not only encourages you to ask questions, but to seek answers, ask more questions, and continue the cycle of leadership and learning. To be the leader in the room and beyond. And to love enough and have enough courage to change those answers and blaze those trails through your honorable work.
What you do with the honor of Sigma membership is one of the greatest gifts you can provide as a nurse and as a person. I hope that you will hold it in high regard and always act with love, courage, and honor.
Cassandra Moffitt, MSN, RN, CDCES, is a clinical assistant professor at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, USA. She is a member of Sigma’s Iota Nu at-Large Chapter and Phi Iota Chapter. Cassandra is pursuing her PhD.