Being a nurse comes along with a lot of risks and sacrifices. It not an easy job as you might as well be losing your own life as you take care the lives of others. A sad news just came in lately that in Northern Ireland, there has been increase in the number of attacks in their Mental Health Nurses.

Year 2010 is the International Year of the Nurse and it also marks the centennial year of the death of the founder of modern nursing — Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). She was an English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence during the Crimean War for her pioneering work in nursing, and was dubbed “The Lady with the Lamp” after her habit of making rounds at night to tend injured soldiers. Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment, in 1860, of her nursing school at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.

In the medical world, nurses and doctors are working hand in hand in taking care of patients. Even though medical care won’t be that effective without each other, there has been a distinct difference between the two in the terms of status level in the hospital. In the ladder of authority, it is always the doctor on top then the nurses following them. In delivering medical care, the doctor will give orders for the patient and it would be carried out by the nurses. Nurses are most often referred as doctor’s assistants.

One of the most destructive forces in any society is the abuse of drugs. This includes addictions to any kind of drug including alcohol, street drugs, and the improper usage of prescription drugs when not prescribed by a doctor. In developing countries, this can be even more devastating, as there are few Intervention programs available to help those inflicted with an addiction.