Today, May 12, we celebrate International Nurses Day, honoring professionals who dedicate themselves intensely to care, in an essential closeness, from each patient visit to health systems around the world.
Today, besides clinical and hospital care, nurses have the opportunity to care for patients' health through aesthetics, an achievement that did not happen overnight but took years to be properly established in law.
This fight grew from the understanding that Aesthetic Nursing was already a reality, nationally and internationally. Legal backing came to ensure the safety of nurses and their patients, who can now be properly supported by the competent bodies and count on full backing in carrying out activities that have benefited many people who seek care through aesthetics.
Nursing can be the perfect match for aesthetics for yet another reason: being such a visceral part of health systems makes clinical and hospital care extremely draining.
There are many hours of shifts, and not all nurses are willing to face this way of working, which often means striving to restore someone else's health while wearing down one's own.
On International Nurses Day, we chose to talk about how specializing in aesthetics has benefited professionals in the field, because we have access to many stories that show the reality of burnout this profession faces – as do other professions working in healthcare.
And talking about aesthetic nursing in these circumstances is talking about hope in the lives of many people. It is a window of opportunity that more and more professionals have stepped through, to invest their own time and energy where they are valued, especially those who want to start their own businesses.
A Change of Routine: From SAMU to Aesthetics
One of these stories is that of Maryellen Sprenger, a nurse who loves her profession. She worked with SAMU (Brazil's mobile emergency medical service), in calls that involve a lot of adrenaline and recurring risks for professionals.
With the birth of her children, Maryellen decided she needed to change her routine to a safer option, and even considered going back to school for a new degree. But, being truly passionate about the profession she chose, she did not want to give up nursing, and today she is specializing in aesthetics, a field where she can reinvent herself and feel more at ease in her motherhood.
The Dream of Caring and Starting a Business
As for Alline Colosovski, she always knew she wanted to be an entrepreneur. Not just to start a business, but also to work in caring for people. She already wanted to achieve this goal in a career focused on aesthetics, but at the time the profession was still going through a process of legal and personal uncertainty.
It turns out that for a while Alline had doubts about the potential of aesthetics in care, compared with all the vital possibilities a nurse could carry out.
When she gave the field a chance, by then fully regulated, Alline was finally able to follow the path she had long dreamed of, starting a business and caring for people, and today she is very happy in her clinic. And she shares her experience:
“All of my patients teach me so much. I realize how much this external care is linked to quality of life, to health, to the psychological side, how much patients leave the office smiling, happier, more upbeat, more confident. And all of that is health. My understanding of what I considered health expanded.”
Aesthetic Nursing as a Differentiator
The third nurse we want to highlight is Pâmela Pohlmam. Her story has a lot to do with what we were saying about the burnout of shift work.
That is because Pâmela has worked shifts for 10 years and, on top of the demanding pace, she also faced distance, working 150 kilometers from where she lived. That is why career flexibility was essential for her.
Interviewed while she was taking the specialization, she saw in therapeutic care through Ozone Therapy a prospect capable of bringing a powerful differentiator to her training and career. We close with her full interview.
Laís Bianquini
NEPUGA content team — Núcleo de Especializações Ana Carolina Puga.
