Mercedes Pérez: "All healthcare is crying out for more humanity, more attention and respect. A more person-centered care".

Last Friday, May 26th, the School of Nursing celebrated the graduation of the XI Promotion of Degree in Nursing, and the LXIII of the School. A total of 131 students participated in the ceremony, together with their families and the faculty of the School.

First of all, Hildegart González, godmother of the graduating class, took the floor. In her speech, also a professor of Sociology, she wanted to focus on the nursing policy skill , understood as "the sum of knowledge, skills and attitudes that allow nurses to participate effectively in decision-making spaces where issues that directly or indirectly affect the health care that society requires are debated and agreed upon, and of which nurses are guarantors because this health care is the backbone, the raison d'être of their profession". The reasons that lead González to invite nurses to promote this skill is because "it is a facilitator for the knowledge and the nursing voice to be taken into account in all decision-making spaces where issues that affect the healthcare of patients, families and communities are agreed upon".

After the ceremony of submission of the diplomas, the class delegates, Victoria Lopez de Bleda and Alexander Purnell, proceeded to address their classmates in a very inspiring speech : "We have gone to graduate at the best University in the world. We are very fortunate. Both alluded to concrete facts that they will begin to experience from now on, such as that "the only thing we are guaranteed in life is pain and death. And although this is so, we have the certainty that we can always accompany and alleviate until the last moment. Because there is no evil that has no consolation in every gesture and every word". You can see the complete speech here.

Finally, the dean of School, Mercedes Pérez Diez del Corral, closed the event with some advice to the students: "You have to be persuaded that procuring the good of many is a more powerful incentive than seeking the good of oneself, and keeps the spirit serene, young and combative, a spirit unavailable to paralyzing discouragement or mediocre conformism." Perez placed special emphasis on the need to humanize care: "In almost all forums dealing with health, there is talk, among other things, of the need to humanize healthcare, to humanize care. We are all at agreement. Hospitals, health centers, all health care is crying out for more humanity, more attention and respect, a more person-centered care, a more person-centered cure". And he concluded: "Do not forget your roots, your origin, from time to time look back. You are already part of the University of Navarra of which its founder said: 'it must be a focus, more and more alive, of civic freedom, of intellectual preparation, of professional emulation, and a place where students are trained in a mentality of service; service to society, promoting the common good with their professional work and with their civic action'".