This month's cover features portraits of nurses employed by the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. They were painted in 2020 by fashion designer and artist Rebecca Moses to honor nurses' work-particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife-and are being displayed this year across Mount Sinai's sites.
The portraits were borne of a chance encounter between Moses and Linda M. Valentino, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, chief nursing officer of Mount Sinai West and vice president of women's and children's services at the Mount Sinai Health System. In the spring of 2020, Moses started painting and posting portraits of women who shared their lockdown stories with her on Instagram. Valentino's sister messaged Moses, telling her about Linda's work on the front lines of the pandemic. Moses painted side-by-side portraits of Valentino: one depicting her in regular clothes, and one in personal protective equipment (PPE).
At the time, New York City was the epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States, and Valentino was pondering how to recognize her nursing colleagues' immense efforts as frontline workers. She and Moses ended up coordinating on a project to do just that. Moses agreed to paint 46 nurse portraits to be displayed in an exhibition titled "Thank You, Mount Sinai Nurses," which went on view at Mount Sinai Hospital's Guggenheim Pavilion last December. (Mount Sinai management selected the 46 nurses, who submitted photos of themselves.) The portraits present a view of nurses much different from the images seen during the pandemic-not as encumbered by PPE, but as unique and vibrant individuals. In honoring Mount Sinai nurses, Valentino says, "we are recognizing nurses everywhere."
See this month's Special Feature for a photo-essay depicting nurses at work around the world in 2020.-Diane Szulecki, editor