Long before I started my career, Mother Teresa was my hero. Known as a modern saint, this diminutive nun of humble origins was recognized throughout the world as someone who loved and cared for the poorest of the poor, the sick, and the dying.
Many years later, while an ICU nurse, I had the privilege of meeting Mother Teresa in person. It was thrilling to meet her—not only because she was my hero but because of the awesome presence about her. She asked me if I wanted to become a Sister. As I’m not Catholic and was already married with children, we shared a good laugh. But the blessing she prayed over me as a mother and a nurse is one of the most memorable moments of my life—one I’ve reflected on often over the years. She exemplified compassion and caring; expressed respect for all human life in word and deed; and championed human dignity by listening to those no one else heard. Her work and ethics continue to inspire me, and maybe you’ll find inspiration in her example, too.
According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Code of Ethics for Nurses, we have four essential obligations:
- Promote health
- Prevent illness
- Restore health
- Alleviate suffering
In a 2021 update, the ICN reiterates these obligations while adding new emphasis to values such as supporting human rights and respectful care, as well as ethical reasoning and conduct. Despite the well-known adage “if it wasn’t charted, it wasn’t done,”—suggesting that tasks are paramount—sometimes the most important aspects of nursing care are not captured by documentation. The care nurses provide is more than the sum of the tasks completed. In the words of Maya Angelou, “ … people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Non-verbal cues can be a powerful conduit to convey nursing ethics. I believe the following quotes from Mother Teresa serve as exemplars of ethical caring and can remind us what good care looks and feels like.
“Once I picked up a man from the street, from an open drain, and I took him to our home, and he did not shout, he did not blame anybody, just said: ‘I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die like an angel, loved, and cared for.’ Two or three hours after, he died with a big smile on his face—that was tenderness and love that came to him through the hands of those young sisters.”
In nursing, respect for human rights includes preserving patients’ dignity. Recognizing the inherent human worth of every patient and their unique characteristics through word and deed acknowledges dignity.
“... I shook his hands and then he said: ‘Oh, after so long a time, I feel the warmth of a human hand.’ And his face was quite different. There was joy, there was sunshine in his eyes.”
Respect for all persons is an ethical principle supporting human rights, which is inherent to nursing care. The importance of human touch to alleviate suffering and provide respectful care cannot be underestimated.
“There are many medicines and cures for all kinds of sick people. But unless kind hands are given in service and generous hearts are given in love, I do not think there can ever be any cure for the terrible sickness of feeling unloved … Listening, when no one else volunteers to listen, is no doubt a very noble thing.”
Listening is another aspect of respectful care. When we listen long enough to truly hear our patients, we can provide ethical care, and this enables us to better advocate for our patients.
“All of them were looking toward the door … ‘They are always waiting for someone to come and visit them. Loneliness eats them up, and day after day they do not stop looking. Nobody comes.’ Abandonment is an awful poverty … the deepest poverty is not being loved.”
As caring professionals, we need to be authentically present and attentive enough to see the “person in the patient” as well as their needs.
“We will never know just how much a simple smile will do.”
Like Mother Teresa, nurses were aware of the terrible toll of loneliness long before the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw the increased loneliness of forced isolation during the early days of the pandemic and stepped in to bridge the gap as best we could, with compassion—ensuring that patients knew they were seen, and were given the opportunity to voice their emotions, discuss their feelings, and participate in their care.
Last year I spent four months in India on a Fulbright-Nehru scholarship. To my delight, I found a kindred spirit on the other side of the world: Anita Kumar, an OR nurse and faculty at Christian Medical College-Vellore, College of Nursing. She also saw Mother Teresa’s ethics as applicable to nursing in India and shared this with me:
India is a country with diverse cultures and beliefs. While nurses in India come from diverse backgrounds, they are united in the common qualities of a nurse. The personal qualities which we expect in a professional nurse are to provide service to humanity with caring, honesty, self-discipline, courage, and compassion. These attributes are presumed to drive nurses to see the larger meaning of the little things that are carried out for the comfort and care of those in need. Little tasks which are important to our patients, carried out with love and compassion, are transformed into something wonderful, priceless, and intangible. Mother Teresa’s legacy lives on in nursing in India.
She met people on the streets of Calcutta [now Kolkata]. Her first act was to pick up and serve the dying, the poorest of the poor, and those with no one else to help them. Mother Teresa was full of compassion for the diseased, downtrodden, dejected, and dying. It was her compassion that pushed her to touch the untouchable and cry with those who were suffering. She had an empathetic approach to those in pain that made them feel respected and cared for. Mother Teresa handled the sick in a straightforward manner, with practical courage and honesty. She was self-disciplined and diligent in her service, consistently standing up for the voiceless and dejected.
Nurses in India emulating Mother Teresa are ethical nurses. These nurses exhibit the professional qualities of providing service to humanity with caring, honesty, self-discipline, courage, and compassion—putting personal values into action.
Though Mother Teresa was not a professional nurse, if we want to embrace the ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses, we would do well to emulate her. We are all capable of doing these seemingly small things, that are in fact, a big part of being ethical nurses. Through compassionate, respectful caring, listening, and being authentically present for our patients—while putting personal values into action—Mother Teresa’s legacy is carried on by nurses around the world.
Lisa Roberts, DrPH, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CHES, FAANP, FAAN, is the Loma Linda University School of Nursing Director of Research, as well as a practicing nurse practitioner. She is a member of Sigma’s Gamma Alpha Chapter.