CUTV News Radio Spotlights Advocate for Nursing Jan Pack

Osceola, IA – Jan Pack is a dedicated advocate for the future of nursing. Her goal is to ensure nurses are educated the best they can be for today's world. 

“Nursing is indeed an art,” says Pack. “It takes a special person to perform these tasks. We hold the lives of our communities in our hands, so let's keep the art of nursing forever in our hearts.”

With over 48 years of experience as a registered nurse, Pack has specialized in administration, rehabilitation, surgery, dementia, wound care and home care. She considers nursing the most special, most honored, most-fulfilling career anyone can ever have.

"My greatest professional inspiration has always been Florence Nightingale,” says Pack. “She was the beginning of nursing as prior to that; "nurses" were regarded as less than scullery maids. They were not respected. Florence changed the entire thought process and turned it into a profession. She just inspired me. How can I follow in those footsteps?”

Unfortunately, says Pack, today’s nurses are not the nurses of the past, and will never be again. They’re more of a technician than hands on.

“Nurses care for patients holistically; we treat the entire person as an individual,” says Pack. “That's how I learned. That was, and is my experience. And that's what I will do to the end of my days. I will always recommend any new nurse to start in a hospital setting in order to acquire these skills that cannot be taught; only experience can bring these to the forefront.

“I am so proud, and honored to have that ability to care for whomever I touch and whatever I do, which is what I need to do,” says Pack. “It's my life; it's my soul. I do what I love to do every day.”