Nurses Most Trusted Profession for 18 Years in Row
More than engineers, accountants, professors, or police officers, nurses lead the pack when it comes to honesty and ethics, according to 2019 Gallup polling data (https://news.gallup.com/poll/274673/nurses-continue-rate-highest-honesty-ethics.aspx). For 18 years in a row, nurses have been recognized as the most trusted profession in the United States—by a considerable margin, too. Ratings for nursing honesty and ethics outpaced every other profession by a wide margin, and nurses lead the next most trusted profession—engineers—by nearly 20 percentage points (https://news.gallup.com/poll/274673/nurses-continue-rate-highest-honesty-ethics.aspx).
According to the poll, 85% of Americans ranked nurses as “high” or “very high” when it comes to honesty and ethics in practice. This marks a slight increase from 2018 (https://voice.ons.org/advocacy/nurses-ranked-most-trusted-profession-in-2018), up from 84%, but shows a continued trend for the impact of the profession. Patients and family members look to their nurses for education, support, resources, and guidance. More than that, they believe that nurses will do the right thing, give them the most truthful information, and provide them with the evidence they need to make the best decisions possible for their situation.
Advocate for Your Profession
With 2020 designated the Year of the Nurse and Midwife (https://www.who.int/news-room/campaigns/year-of-the-nurse-and-the-midwife-2020) and marking ONS’s 45th anniversary, nurses have been granted an ideal time to further champion the leading role they fill on the healthcare team and in the larger healthcare community. Through education, symptom management interventions, research, navigation, and advanced practice efforts, nurses from all areas of the profession are making a lasting difference for patients.
To spread the word and advocate for the growth and evolution of the profession, consider sharing your voice and experiences. ONS has outlets and opportunities for oncology nurses to grow and drive change:
- Practice-based conversation and collaboration on the ONS Communities (https://communities.ons.org/home)
- Learning from and sharing stories in ONS Voice (https://voice.ons.org/)
- Disseminating nurse-led research in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing (https://cjon.ons.org/) or the Oncology Nursing Forum (https://onf.ons.org/)
- Hearing from experts in the field on the Oncology Nursing Podcast (https://www.ons.org/explore-resources?display=source&source=2696)
- Connecting with nurses from across the country and around the globe at ONS’s annual Congress (https://congress.ons.org/)
- Joining ONS’s advocacy efforts (https://www.ons.org/make-difference/get-involved?ref=RO) to enact change at the local, state, or federal levels of government
- Growing into new roles through ONS’s Leadership Development Committee (https://www.ons.org/why-ons/ons-leadership)
The 2019 Gallup polling data provides further evidence of what nurses should already know: the profession is held in high esteem. Whether it’s among patients and caregivers, colleagues on the healthcare team, or in offices on Capitol Hill, nurses are recognized as leaders in care, providing crucial perspective and experience to help inform new models of care, research, treatment, and health policy (https://www.ons.org/make-difference). Through their honest, ethical behavior and expertise, nurses are affecting lives and changing the world of the health.