A Generational Hand-off

Our whiteboard in a patient’s room.

Today, I was oriented to a hospital unit by my daughter.

That sentence feels so surreal to type.

I’ve been a dansko-wearing nurse for twenty-five years. I’ve trained new graduates, mentored nurse practitioners, and taught countless students how to walk into a patient’s room with both competence and compassion. I’ve been the one saying, “Here’s how we do things.”

And today, my daughter stood beside me in her progressive care unit and showed me how she does things.

The universe has a funny way of folding time back on itself.

I watched her explain policies, navigate monitors, and speak with quiet confidence to her team, who know and respect her. This wasn’t my little girl pretending to be grown. This was a professional nurse standing before me.

And somehow, she was also still my daughter.

There are moments in nursing that change you. Codes, first deaths, first lives saved. But today changed me differently. Today, the profession that once gave me purpose gave me something even more rare which was the chance to stand beside my child as her peer.

Today wasn’t just orientation.

It was a hand-off across generations.

My daughter and I nursing the heck out of our patients today.