The Daily Feather — Flo’s Capping Ceremony
A Lady with a lamp shall stand.
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic Womanhood
“Santa Filomena,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1857
We know about that Florence Nightingale, one of the most famous women in British history whose tireless work in the Crimean War established the nursing profession. Her life was one dedicated to campaigning for improved sanitary conditions in both military and civilian hospitals. But what about the other Florence Nightingale, the fashion maven? She insisted that nurses be recognized in the field and be protected against infection by donning full-length, long-sleeved dresses with aprons and a veil-like cap fashioned after a nun’s habit. At the risk of sounding sexist, which wouldn’t faze us, we love nurses’ caps and wish they’d bring them back. That crisp, white hat…ah, but the power it commanded. The statement they made, the status they relayed, poised perfectly atop coiffed hair. Caps conveyed a distinct dignity and communicated the gratification of being a constant comfort to patients whose doctors dashed in and out. We say bring back the Capping Ceremonies that were rightly a rite of passage, a dignified induction into a proud profession.
Nostalgia aside, today’s army of nurses in scrubs continues to do God’s work. The world was gifted a renewed appreciation of the profession during the pandemic. The horrific footage splashed across the media had a permanent fixture – a crowd of nurses surrounding the patients fighting for their lives. Even in ICU wards, it’s unusual to see as many nurses as what were required to treat a single acute COVID patient. Understandably, nurse pay skyrocketed. A cottage industry of travel nurses, who numbered about 50,000 (1.5% of the workforce) prior to the pandemic more than doubled as pay swelled to $5,000 or more weekly. But that was then. Pay has since been halved or worse. And healthcare more broadly has become a poster child of the current bankruptcy cycle.
In today’s Feather, we’re going to depart from the macroeconomic calendar norm and examine a sector that’s under siege.