history of nursestakedc

In 2015 when the View made disparaging comments about a Miss America contestant over her monologue of being a nurse the nursing world reacted by uniting and showing support to the contestant. There had already been several Facebook groups that nurses were involved in that nurses would discuss unsafe staffing and the need for nurse to patient ratios. A hand full of Nurses decided that if their colleagues could come together and unite over a disparaging comment, then Nurses needed to unite over a cause that was in dire need of not only being complained about but corrected. The cause is the epidemic of unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios occurring across the United States.
It was then that Pamela Barcomb RN, Melissa Brown RN, Deena Sowa McCollum RN, Catherine Stokes RN, and Doris Carroll RN came together and started planning to have a Rally in Washington DC. Shortly thereafter the decision to call it NursesTakeDC was made, as the goal was to get nurses to take DC to talk to their legislators about supporting legislation mandating nurse-to-patient ratios.
Legislation was already developed, but not many nurses knew that the legislation existed. So these nurses made it a mission to educate their colleagues, all health care professionals, and the general public about this legislation. To encourage them to get involved with contacting their legislative representatives to sponsor and support the legislation that would make a standard to nurse-to-patient ratios that could not be ignored.
During the planning process the NursesTakeDC organizing team collaborated with the growing group called Show Me Your Stethoscope (SMYS). Now a growing professional organization that healthcare professionals are a part of, that advocates for all healthcare professionals and patients. To this day the NursesTakeDC event is a collaborative project that continues to focus on the following: