International Nurses' Day is celebrated annually on 12 May, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth. The day aims to honour and celebrate the contributions of nurses worldwide; this year's theme is 'Our Nurses Our Future' as announced by the International Council of Nurses (ICN).

In joining the world to celebrate Nurses Day, the Department of Nursing Science at the University of Pretoria invited fourth-year student Pholoso Shaku to share her passion for the profession. 

Shaku began her journey to become a professional registered nurse in 2020. She admits that she initially thought it would be a walk in the park. However, within her first few months of training, she quickly learned that she was already expected to be a nurse.

Here is her story:

In 2020 I enrolled to train and study to become a professional registered nurse. Externally it appeared to be undemanding, uncomplicated and unchallenging. However, my own experience of nursing remodeled that mindset. Within the first few months after I was enrolled in training, I was expected to be a nurse.

Greetings to my fellow nurses, I'd love to call them the Nightingales or Nightingalians, the ones that ensure your body is fit and well enough to carry your soul. I also greet forthcoming nurses like me who are still earning their stripes.

A patient's first interaction with a nurse determines the quality of their course in achieving wellness. The nurse's initial assessment and subsequent care quality are vital to positive health outcomes. At a glance, nurses inspect and know your possible story and a possible answer to what is wrong.

Florence Nightingale's Environmental Theory defined nursing as "…the act of utilizing the patient's environment to assist him in his recovery". In addition, the WHO defined nursing as a profession that "encompasses autonomous and collaborative care of individuals, families, groups, and communities that are sick or well in all settings." This entails Nursing that is guided by core principles that aim to achieve and promote health, prevent illness, care for the ill, the disabled and the vulnerable.

Here is what I have experienced in the years of my training:

• Nurses perform one of the greatest acts of love, caring for people in their most vulnerable state – when they can do nothing for themselves.
• Nurses act to bring about wellness in an individual, be it mental, physical, spiritual or emotional. 
• Nursing is a tangible, embodied hope.
• Nursing is the belief in interventions, trust in team members from various disciplines, faith in treatment, and confidence in knowledge. 
• Nursing affirms the body's ability to heal itself at its most vulnerable state when assistance, environmental therapy, and equipment are needed. 
• Nurses speak for the voiceless, who know less but need to be treated right.
• Nursing is believing and trusting not what the eyes see but what the knowledge acquired in physiology states – it is a lived version of the phrase "trust the process."
• Nursing is prioritising one's health and holding it with the utmost respect, ensuring that the interventions undertaken are what is best, right, ethical, and appropriate at that time – at all times.

An analogy that makes sense in my head, and I am glad for this opportunity to share it today, is that nurses are like smoke detectors, and true, where there is smoke, there is fire, and fire destroys; to us where there are abnormal symptoms and signs, there is an illness lurking. If, for some reason, the smoke detector missed the smoke and the fire was detected at a later stage, we become firefighters – on site. Our priority is to ensure that there isn't a fire at all.

The epaulets and the bars on nurses' shoulders signify the above-mentioned. To aspiring nurses who wish to start the journey of becoming a nurse, this is what it means to be a nurse, and being a nurse requires that of you. With the qualification comes great responsibility: A HUMAN LIFE.

• Nurses play a vital role in health care emergencies, disease prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. 
• Nurses witness people's first and last breaths – yet still carry on the next Day – and yes, saving lives is our dedication. 
• Nurses are the filter of what is right for a patient in therapy, with precision in medication administration.
• Nursing is for the people; it is an obligation for nurses.
• I feel privileged to be enrolled to study for such an occupation, becoming trained to aid people for a living – that is cool.
• It is a calling and a promise to forever see a positive outcome after every admission, regardless of the state – aiming to bring about restoration.

That is what nursing was, what nurses are and what nursing will forever be.