Patti Carlsen, a nurse at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, checks a patient’s vitals. Civilian nurses at military medical treatment facilities throughout the Military Health System play a vital role in developing military nurses (Photo by: Deidre Smith, Naval Hospital Jacksonville).

"We work hand-in-hand and I've learned an incredible amount from great civilian nurses. Across the Department of Defense, civilian nurses are critical to developing our military nurses and play a large role in shaping how we learn and grow in the future," Myers said. "In my experience, as a young second lieutenant at Fort Gordon, Georgia, the very experienced civilian nurses were the ones that really helped me hone my skills in that first assignment, fresh out of college with little experience."

This development would be virtually impossible without the support of civilian nurses, who comprise roughly 70-80% of the nursing staff at MTFs, working with and teaching the fundamentals to young military nurses, said Myers.

Myers said he owes civilian nurses a debt of gratitude for preparing him for deployment.

"When you deploy, there are a limited number of nurses at each site. What prepared me for the deployed role was my experience at the MTF where civilian nurses truly taught me how to be a nurse," said Myers. "When I deployed to Afghanistan, I was ready to be on my own to support the force in an austere deployed environment."

Myers said that the opportunities to fill non-traditional roles throughout his career are one of the biggest factors that has kept him in the military.

"The fact that I had opportunities to lead early in my career coupled with a variety of experiences in multiple locations and settings, including being deployed, is really what hooked me and kept me in military nursing to this day," said Myers.

The COVID-19 pandemic, he said, has only served to reinforce the importance and mission of the Nurse Corps.

"As we look at the pandemic and how we approached it, this year's Nurses Week theme, again, is very fitting for military nurses. Unified – it was and remains a unified effort across the services. Reliable – I can rely on the nurses that I've worked with to be able to take on any challenge in any setting under any conditions. Ready – the Nurse Corps is always ready for any challenge ahead," Myers said. "The challenges you face will never come at you in textbook manner, so the key is to be able to shift and adapt to the environment and COVID is a great example of that."

Nurses Week is an opportunity to pause and reflect, said Myers.

"We're running so hard the entire year and it provides us an opportunity to celebrate our profession and reflect on helping others, as well as collaborate, to come together as a group and say, 'Hey, here's what we learned and here are the things we can work on together,'" he said. "It's more than just a celebration, it's an opportunity to look at our practice and profession and make it better."

Myers said he owes his career to his peers, predecessors, and leadership, within and outside of the Nurse Corps.

"It's truly an honor to be an Army nurse. I came into the Army to support my service obligation from four years of ROTC in college, and I always planned on departing at the four-year and one-day mark," Myers said. "Because of the nurses around me, my peers, the civilian nurses and all of the leaders in professions beyond nursing in the Army and the DOD, I'm still here."