Pick out your National Nurses Day gift yet?

I want a Google Doodle, and I need your help.

I’ve started a petition where you can sign to say that you agree, nurses are innovative and creative and exciting and hardworking and deserve their very own, very first Google Doodle on May 6th, National Nurses Day. Sign away.

I’ll be e-mailing the Google Doodle Team every day until May 6th to tell them why we need this tribute, and to introduce them to living, American nurse innovators. I’ll post the stories here; send your ideas for innovators of all types, ages, specialties to 12hourRN@gmail.com, and tell your friends via #RNgoogledoodle. We’ve got 30 days. If you’ve been born, you’ve been touched by a nurse, and you should sign.

Why do I think this is important? Because too many people don’t have a clue what nurses do every minute of every day. Which is why I think a Google Doodle might actually be the best Nurses Week gift in the history of the funny holiday – for nurses, and Americans. Maybe, if we’re showcased on the most innovative website on the internet, we’ll step up to the plate and start telling our country why we deserve to be there.

This year, let’s ditch the tired nurses week traditions, and use our holiday to show Americans exactly what we are are: amazing, multi-faceted clinicians, inventors, policy makers, artists, problem-solvers and care-givers. Long before Google became a verb, “nurse” entered the language of the globe and changed it forever. We’re still here to tell our tales; perhaps Google can learn a thing or two from our history of innovation.