Ask anyone in the medical profession what nurses do, and they’ll likely tick off an ever-growing list that goes beyond what many of us think of when we imagine a nurse’s day-to-day life. Nurses are the lifeblood of hospitals, nursing homes and pretty much every healthcare institution.

Lake Placid is — and has been — extraordinarily lucky to have such dedicated, hard-working nurses to care for members of our community. One such nurse that comes to mind is Cora Clark, a registered nurse and Lake Placid native that was inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame in 2017 and named Distinguished Adult Volunteer in 2016.

A nurse at Adirondack Medical Center, a nurse for kids at Lake Placid Middle-High School, organizer of the North Elba Christmas Fund, volunteer nurse for the 1980 Olympic Winter Games, the Great Outdoor Games, Ironman, the Lake Placid Marathon and Half. Co-president of the Lake Placid Central School Alumni Association, member of the Adirondack Community Church board of trustees, president of the CSEA Unit 6804 union. The number of positions Clark has held and the impact she has on this community is incredible.

We need more nurses like Clark. Well, we need more nurses, period, according to the American Nurses Association. Even before the pandemic, the number of retirements from the nursing field far outpaced the number of new nurses entering the field nationwide. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is projecting 194,500 average annual openings for registered nurses nationwide between 2020 and 2030, with employment expected to grow 9% — all while more than one-fifth of nurses across the country indicate their intention to retire in the next five years, according to the ANA.

“Nurses are under immense stress and feel the full weight of an overburdened, poorly functioning health care system,” the ANA says.

Nurses care for us, and we need to care for our nurses, too. National Nurses Week may be over, but it’s never a bad time to thank nurses for all they do for us, despite whatever they may have to overcome on a daily basis. Thank you to the nurses of Lake Placid. We appreciate you.