Mastering the art of politics

As a long-term political relationship matures, the nurse's scope of influence with the legislator generally grows and mutual respect ensues. In the best relationships, legislators seek the opinion of nurses on health care questions and ask them to share their expertise at informal meetings or through formal testimony at a policy committee hearing. When possible, backing friendly legislators from either party during their re-election bids places nurses in a proactive rather than a reactive relationship with legislative policymakers. Alliances-are further developed when nursing organizations endorse legislators who have taken pro-nursing stances on important issues. Nurses or nursing groups that take the initial step toward involvement in the political process are the ones who will influence the future of nursing and health care policy. Visionary nurses throughout the past century helped establish nursing as a professional discipline. They were risk takers with a dream and acted for the betterment of nursing. We should still heed the advice of one of these prominent visionaries, Florence Nightingale, who said: The progressive world is necessarily divided into two classes--those who take the best of what there is and enjoy it--those who wish for something better and try to create it. Without these two classes, the world would be badly off. They are the very conditions of progress, both the one and the other. Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better (Nightingale, 1860/1979, p. 29). You need to seize the moment, be risk-takers, become politically-savvy nurses and make a difference in the profession of nursing and, more importantly, the lives of the patients who are entrusted to your care!