Become a mentor.
That has become a steady mantra for Baltimore?s Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, who challenged the doctors, nurses and nuns working at Mercy Hospital Center to do more than just show up at their jobs.
“I see so many people who are going nowhere fast. They have the Martin Luther King speech, the dream in their heads, but they don?t see the path,”Cummings said Tuesday during his address on human progress as part of the hospital?s Black History Month celebration. “Nobody?s showing them the path, but they have plenty of people blocking their way.”
Mentorship speeds up people?s progress, and when individuals succeed, communities can succeed, he said.
Sister Helen Amos, chairwoman of Mercy?s board of trustees, said the hospital institutionalized mentorship in helping new nurses train and advance within Mercy.
“The nursing department has a very structured program to bring people up through the ranks, encouraging them to get educated and move up through the ranks of nursing,” she said.
Respiratory therapist Bruce Harrington said Mercy does a lot of good in the community, but he called an outreach mentoring program working within the community a good idea. “It?s just something that should always have been.”
Cummings also urged everyone to reach out to people they meet, look past their own prejudices and “interact with other people. Period.”
His words touched surgical equipment technician Gregory Roberson. “We have to care about one another. Not just because you?re a celebrity, or you could be a star.”
Roberson said Cummings challenged people to look past their own comfort and touch other people you meet. “When I work on patients, I try to see them as myself.”
