I read with interest your editorial, "Taking Our Case to the Public" (Editor's Note, May 2005). In one of my BSN courses, we read the book you recommended, From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public by Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon. My classmates and I found practical ways to give ourselves and the nursing profession a voice. Many of us wrote to our representatives in Congress and received responses.

As members of the nursing profession, we can stand up and be vocal about what it takes to be a nurse and what we have to offer in the health care arena. If more of us would take the time to write to legislators, journalists, and the like, people would be more aware of the contribution we make to this country. Maybe then people would realize that they can't live without us.

TERRI GIBSON, RN

Corrales, N.M.