Celebrating National Nurses Month at NMRTC Sigonella

By Lt. Chereé Nagle, U.S. Naval Medical Readiness and Training Command Sigonella

Every year from May 6-12, we take the time to celebrate National Nurses Week and honor the memory of Florence Nightingale, the foundational philosopher of modern nursing, who was born on May 12 in 1820.

This year, the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the World Health Organization (WHO), extended the traditional week-long celebration to the month of May to fully recognize the contributions and vital impact that nurses have made and continue to make in the treatment of all patients during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

From the early days of Florence Nightingale on the front lines of the battlefields of Crimea, where she risked her life to treat the ill and injured fighters, to our present-day nurses who have truly evolved in providing a wide range of care across all specialties and settings.

Across inpatient and ambulatory care environments, nurses are highly trained, educated and specialize in over 33 clinical areas to include emergency medicine, labor and delivery, pediatrics, family medicine, and surgical specialties just to name a few. The list of nursing specialties continues to grow, as does the importance of nursing contributions to healthcare.

Serving as a Navy Nurse Corps officer means providing high-quality healthcare to military personnel and eligible beneficiaries for routine appointments to the most critical medical conditions or injuries. You will find Navy nurses proudly treating patients at U.S. and overseas military treatment facilities, as well as austere environments such as naval deployments at sea, embedded with deployed Marine units, and even during humanitarian aid missions on the ground or at sea aboard the USNS Comfort or USNS Mercy hospital ships.

U.S. Naval Medical Readiness and Training Command (NMRTC) Sigonella, which includes clinics in Bahrain and Souda Bay, boasts over 52 military and civilian nurses who serve in a variety of inpatient and outpatient specialties.

“Nursing is more than a job. It is giving oneself and a dedicated commitment to service and caring for others sometimes when they may be most vulnerable or in their most critical states,” said NMRTC Sigonella chief nursing officer Capt. Tracey Giles. “During the pandemic, we have seen nurses genuinely go above and beyond by working under arduous conditions with limited resources and becoming surrogate family members to COVID-19 patients when loved ones could not provide comfort and say their last goodbyes. During the height of the pandemic, many nurses faced the challenge of risking their health and well-being to provide continuous care to COVID-19 patients. Nurses showed up and persevered.”

When celebrating the heritage of nursing, some of our local nurses shared some of their personal reflections and commitment.

“The reason I love doing this job is that I know that I can make a difference in my patients’ lives during both happy and stressful times,” said Lt. Chereé Nagle, NMRTC Sigonella health promotions coordinator and registered nurse. “I was a civilian nurse for a long time before I decided to join the Navy, but I wanted to be able to do more in my nursing career and felt the call to join the military. Furthermore, being a Naval officer has allowed me to work in a variety of roles and mentor junior Corpsman and Sailors as a nurse all over the world.”

“My favorite thing about being a nurse is getting to help people through what can be a scary time for them,” Lt. Augustina Aure said. “I really enjoy the professional relationships that nurses get to build with doctors and corpsmen and the opportunity to mentor the corpsmen.”

“Nurses occupy a unique place within the medical field and in a patient’s episode of care,” said Lt. Cmdr. Danielle Braiotta, a nurse stationed at the Souda Bay clinic. “Nurses are the ones that are at the bedside with patients for a 12 hour shift; they are providing education and advocacy for the patient struggling to navigate through the network of referrals and specialty care; they are the ones balancing the metrics and data expectations of healthcare business with the clinical experience and provider needs in the clinical setting. The opportunity that I have had to step into each of these roles as a nurse, to advocate for my providers and for my patients, has truly been a blessing.”

“I became a nurse to educate and empower others,” said Lt. Jenna Misuraca, a nurse stationed in Bahrain. “Nurses see the world in its most raw, unfair, and unapologetic form. Yet, somehow, by the grace of innate hope, humankind, and courage, they show up every because they love helping people at the deepest level to ensure they feel safe, comfortable, and valuable. I don’t think there is anything more admirable than that.”

“It’s my life’s purpose helping those in need. It is second nature to me,” said Lt. j.g. Riletha “Riley” Godfrey. “I’ve always known I wanted to help people; however, initially I wasn’t sure in what way that would be, and then I came across nursing and all the different realms it entailed. Beside nursing and mentoring other officers and enlisted, it has truly sustained me as a Navy nursing corps officer.” Godfrey continued, “I have been told ‘Thank you for being here,’ ‘You saved my life,’ and ‘Will you pray with me?’ all while doing what I love, what comes second nature to me: nursing those in need. That is why I am and will retire a Navy Nurse Corps Officer.”

Thank you to all those nurses across NMRTC Sigonella for sharing their stories and inspiration for following the footsteps of the trail blazed by Florence Nightingale. Every story is unique and inspiring on why they made the choice to be a nurse.

As we close out this month, please take the time to give thanks to our community of nurses here in Sigonella, Bahrain and Souda Bay who each play important roles in the care they provide to our beneficiaries and warfighters across Europe.