This etching is titled "The Paragon of hope" and is dedicated to those individuals who spend their lives in the service of healing others. Nurses, nurses aides, home health caretakers, hospice workers and hospital staff are the unsung heroes of medicine. While physicians, surgeons, specialists and therapists are the conductors of the healing arts and the recipients of all the glory, it is the former group that executes the process. They alleviate discomfort and pain and help eliminate the paralysing fear that patients and their loved ones feel when the undefinable burden of severe illness afflicts one. Their presence brings light and hope and they are truly the most vital individuals for any functional society to have. It is a travesty that there are far too few nurses in this country and that many who practice are overworked and woefully underpaid, especially the home health care workers, many who receive wages that are the equivalent of less than $ 1.25 per hour. They never give up because they believe in what they do but they are taken advantage of by the profiteers in the industrial-health care complex and that is an unacceptable sin for us to let persist.
