By Victoria L. Tiase and William M. Sage
America’s nurses are a powerful force for good — four million strong, universally trusted, increasingly diverse, serving every community across the country, with an overall economic impact greater than the total output of the median American state. However, the pain of pandemic nursing is real and widespread. Urgent attention to nursing’s vulnerabilities is required for the profession to help the U.S. emerge from the confluence of the worst public health crisis in over a century and the most severe economic decline since the Great Depression.