If your experience is like mine, you are often asked as a nursing professional to answer healthcare questions from family and friends or discuss healthcare decisions they are contemplating. I have recently begun to realize that those casual questions lead to an opportunity to promote population health to those who clearly seek my input. For instance, a question about pharmaceutical advertising or complaints of a symptom can lead to encouragement to seek routine screening recommended by national guidelines for certain age groups. These conversations can also provide the perfect time to educate others about the importance of a baseline physical for establishing norms so that if health status changes, their provider has a benchmark for evaluation. I am often amazed at how these conversations lead to discovering my family member or friend does not even have a healthcare provider. This finding provides an opportunity to facilitate the individual establishing a relationship with a healthcare provider for quicker and personalized access to care when it is needed.
While casual conversation with friends or family can lead to opportunities for influence, deliberately using your influence to advocate with your local, state, or national legislators can also be powerful and productive. Educational conversations with people you encounter civically such as at church or in community service can often open doors for health advocacy simply because you are seen as trustworthy in your healthcare professional role. Just recently, for the 15th year in a row, nurses were ranked as the most trusted and ethical of all professionals. According to the 2016 Gallup polls, "Nurses have topped the list every year but one since Gallup first asked about them in 1999" (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1654/honesty-ethics-professions.aspx). While we should not take that ranking for granted, we certainly should use it to promote health whenever and where we can.
In my faculty role, I often remind students at our graduation hooding ceremony that "to whom much is given, much is required" (Luke 12:48). Nurses have been given immense social responsibility that I believe extends beyond our paid work hours. While our licensure represents a pact we hold with society to promote the health, safety, and rights of the patients we care for, I would argue, our professional responsibility also requires us to use our influence to promote the health and welfare of all global citizens-both those we know personally and those whom we have never met.
Influence by definition means we have the ability to affect actions, behaviors, and beliefs of others. It represents power, but for nursing, I believe that "power' is enabled because of trust, not authority or obligation. Think about the influence you hold to encourage another to develop healthy self-care practice or pursue a nursing career, support legislative initiatives that improve the health of citizens, or even volunteer to serve in a professional nursing association such as our Society of Gastroenterology Nurses and Associates (SGNA). Consciously use your knowledge (and society's trust in nurses) to do good. Maximize the influence you hold as a nurse to extend your impact on influencing better health outcomes for individuals and communities-locally, nationally, and internationally.