How to heal the nation in seven simple steps

I wish to speak to you this morning about the seven human qualities required for transformation of the helping professions. By the helping professions I mean those occupations which have as their primary orientation the duty to serve others. I am thinking of social work, teaching, doctoring and, in your case, nursing.

You do well, as nursing educators, in training young people for basic competence in your profession. But what about those soft skills, which are actually hard skills, required to turn young nurses into more than well-oiled machines and make them well-rounded professionals? I can hear you saying of your charges: I can train you how to set up a drip, but how do I train you not to be one?

In a country as broken and angry as ours, I cannot think of a more important duty than to prepare nursing professionals to heal not only physical wounds but our invisible wound s as we emerge from a bitter past and still bitter present.

I wish to suggest that there are seven human qualities of critical importance in the preparation of nurses as well as other professionals.

1. The capacity to care (working for others)

A group of clinical heads of a well-known hospital were complaining to me about "the lack of" (a common South African start to a conversation) things they needed. One of them told me about children who have to wait for hours for urgent paediatric care. "Would that child have to wait if it was your own flesh and blood?" I asked. "No, said the head, I would rush to provide immediate care no matter what."

2. The capacity for diligence (working hard)

What destroys this country is a culture of laziness. We work only to the clock. Managers fear public holidays on a Thursday for our so-called workers will agitate for a long weekend. Any minute over normal time and we demand more money. Ironically, this culture of laziness is especially evident in the public professions.

3. The capacity for efficiency (working fast)

We are slow. Watch a typical nurse or teacher walk in the workplace. They are slow, often overweight, and move without a care in the world. With coffee mugs in hand and casual conversations about the night before, there is a characteristic slowness as if the patients in the bed or the pupils in the classroom did not matter at all.

4. The capacity for joy (working inwards)

Ever noticed a happy nurse skipping down the aisle between beds as if (s)he was filled with the joy of service? I do not meet people like that in the professions any more. Their body language signals depression, and communicates without fail the message that work is a burden and that the professional showing up is in fact a favour to the patient.

5. The capacity for organisation (working smart)

When I see a disorganised office I assume a disorganised mind, someone without the capacity to plan, and to organise in advance. This is a crucial skill for it is impossible to deliver a service well without knowing the basics of organising and distributing limited resources for the benefit of others.

6. The capacity for anticipation (working ahead)

One of the qualities of a professional is the ability to use knowledge to anticipate the future and plan for a crisis. Yet this simple competence is often lacking in professionals because too often we function as simple workers on the receiving end of decisions rather than as active and autonomous decision-makers ourselves.

7. The capacity for change (working to make a difference)

All professions face this challenge: how do you prevent young people from losing their drive and idealism once they begin work? This is difficult, but we cannot produce new teachers or social workers or nurses who behave as if they are victims of their circumstances.

So how do we train for these qualities in young professionals, such as nurses? You can do it through the example you set as nursing educators; through the love that is conveyed in modelling an ethic of care; through the discipline that is imposed on errant behaviour; through the selectivity that is applied in the choice of those entering the profession; through the practice time that is afforded, under supervision before entering the profession; and through the values that are extolled and upheld daily in the course of preparing young nurses for the workplace.

Keynote Address to the Nursing Education Association in East London on September 4