Our executive director's letter to Will Shortz about his persistent undervaluation of the nursing profession. (Our petiiton is now closed)

Dear Mr. Shortz: The April 27, 2009 New York Times Crossword puzzle sought the answer "nurse" with the clue "hospital attendant." However, nurses are skilled, autonomous professionals who use their years of college-level education to save lives and improve outcomes. They are not "attendants," a word which is generally used to mean an assistant or service worker with relatively little formal education in the relevant field. On the contrary, hospitals exist to provide nursing care. The clue recalls the Times Crossword's even more inaccurate February 27, 2007 nurse clue "ICU helper." See http://tinyurl.com/mbf6za "Attendants" do not perform complex clinical assessments or administer high-tech treatments that mean the difference between life and death. There are no doctoral degrees in "hospital attendancy," as there are in nursing. Nurses do not spend years in difficult science classes in order to fetch items for patients, or store their clothes. We know the Times can do better. You have enough space to include accurate clues for nursing, like "hospital professional" or "health expert." Please try to provides clues for nursing that do not add to the undervaluation that drives the global nursing shortage. Thank you.