By Ruth Hill R.N.

National Nurses Week 2026 runs from Wednesday, May 6, to Tuesday, May 12, 2026, with the theme “The Power of Nurses”. Celebrated annually ending on Florence Nightingale’s birthday (May 12), this week honors the contributions of over 5 million U.S. nurses, featuring events like hospitals lighting up the sky at night. Buildings, landmarks, bridges & healthcare systems nationwide will shine a light on The Power of Nurses. 

The Novel Practice of Handwashing

Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19th-century Hungarian doctor, during an experiment in a Vienna hospital’s maternity ward, discovered the wonders of the now-basic hygienic practice of hand washing to stop the spread of infection in 1847. Semmelweis was ridiculed, put in jail, and died for his heretical views. It took a pioneer, Florence Nightingale, to institute his groundbreaking practice. Nightingale considered the home to be a crucial site for disease-preventing interventions.

Nightingale transformed nursing into the disciplined, compassionate profession that it is today. She suffered severe disapproval from her father and family, who viewed her need to help the sick as degrading and beneath her station in life. It can be an arduous task to appreciate the difficulty of a woman who chooses to be cut off from her family. Women of stature were to be a wife and mother. Undeterred, she persisted and went on to win renown recognition for her discipline and cleanliness in caring for the British soldiers during the Crimean War. She founded the first school for nursing training.

The American Red Cross

Clara Barton, “The Angel of the Battlefield,” witnessed the sad state of battle-weary soldiers in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War. She lobbied in 1862 for permission to take bandages and other supplies to a battlefield hospital after the Battle of Cedar Mountain in Northern Virginia. From then on, she traveled with the Union Army. Barton also founded the American Red Cross.

Nurse Innovators

It was a nurse, Roxana Reyna, while on assignment in the Peace Corps, who devised a way to deliver sterile fluids intravenously to sick patients in Africa. Reyna combined different types of wound dressings to promote healing and kept the tissue clean and stable until surgery could be performed. Reyna’s discovery was used on children born with their intestines outside the abdomen.

It took a nurse, Mary Brown Rathbun, a cannabis advocate, to push the California legislators into passing the first state law that legalized medical marijuana. Rathbun foresaw the coming chaos of states adding a new diagnosis to the law every year. Her efforts led to the inclusion of two sentences in the law that ensured physicians, not legislators, decided the medical need for marijuana/cannabis as the cannabis science changed in the future.

It took Alice O’Leary Randall to form the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics, a lobbying group, in 1976, to secure medical access from the federal government for her husband to use marijuana for his glaucoma. Nurse innovators like Mary Lynn Mathre and Al Byrne transformed the Alliance into a non-profit educational organization called “Patients Out of Time.”

Nurses played a crucial role in the 1996 legalization of medical marijuana in California (Proposition 215) by lending legitimacy to the movement, advocating for patient compassion, and directly participating in drafting and campaigning for the initiative.

Key Contributions of Nurses to Proposition 215 (1996)

Registered nurse Anna Boyce was a co-author of Proposition 215, the ballot initiative. She brought professional legitimacy to the campaign alongside activists and physicians like Dennis Peron and Dr. Tod Mikuriya. Nurses, particularly those working with AIDS and cancer patients in San Francisco, witnessed the debilitating side effects of traditional treatments and the palliative benefits of cannabis. They argued that patients should not be treated as criminals for seeking relief, framing the initiative as a matter of “compassionate use”.

The National Commission of State Boards of Nursing’s extensive research into the endocannabinoid system led to the development of standards of practice for patients using cannabis. While the American Medical Association continues to ignore the science of the endocannabinoid system, nurses are pioneers in educating about safe use.

If you are interested in medical cannabis to treat your symptoms, ask a nurse.

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