Start With Kindness and Grace: A Note to New Nurses

By: Leslie Hopkins DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, ANP-BC

After more than 30 years in nursing education and clinical practice as a primary care nurse practitioner, I have engaged with thousands of students and patients. In that time, I’ve come to believe the two most powerful things we can bring to this profession aren’t found in a textbook. They aren’t clinical guidelines or diagnostic skills. Two simple things that can also be hard. They are foundational to being a stellar nurse at any level.  Kindness and grace.  Some of you may scoff and think, “After 30 years, that’s it? Really?”  And yes, it is.  Really.

I recently retired from my position as an associate professor. As I prepared to say goodbye to my final group of students, I found myself reflecting on what I truly hope I’ve left with them, as well as all my former students. Sure, we covered the essentials of advanced practice nursing, evidence-based primary care, and the frameworks that keep our patients safe. But if I could leave just one lasting lesson, it would be this: extend kindness and grace to everyone you meet—your patients, your colleagues, your friends and family, strangers, and especially, yourself. As new nurses, you’ll worry about making a mistake, feel inadequate, struggle with prioritization, encounter incivility from patients, families, and yes, even colleagues. You will be physically and emotionally exhausted (sounds like nursing school, too, doesn’t it?). For all these reasons, you must be willing to extend yourself the type of kindness and grace you would to others.

I was sitting in a small exam room with a patient. She was calm, soft-spoken, but her grief was so heavy it felt palpable. Her son had recently died of a fentanyl overdose. It was the first time he had ever tried drugs. Just once. Just that one time. And he was gone.

I didn’t have any answers. I couldn’t fix her pain. All I could do was sit and listen. I held the silence with her. I let her cry without interruption. And when she was ready, I listened as she told me his name and who he was, a beautiful, kind, smart young man who had made a tragic mistake.

Florence Nightingale once said, “Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift—there is nothing small about it.” I think of that mother often. Of the life her son lived, and of the life she continues to live without him, with her broken heart. And I think about the kind of nurse I want to be in the face of that kind of sorrow. One who offers kindness and grace. One who shows up with compassion, even when there are no solutions to offer.

That moment, and many others like it, have changed me over the years. It reminded me that our work isn’t just about managing disease, it’s about holding space for people’s humanity. Sometimes we are healers. Sometimes we are educators. And sometimes we are simply witnesses to someone’s deepest pain. Extending kindness and grace in these moments is a privilege, and those in other professions do not have this extraordinary opportunity. For me, it is the gift nursing gives back to me.

Theorist Jean Watson said, “Caring is the essence of nursing.”But caring isn’t just what we do; it’s who we choose to be in every interaction. So, to the new nurses reading this, you are stepping into a sacred space. You’ll carry incredible responsibility, and you’ll also be given the astonishing privilegeto impact those you care for with your kindness and grace. You’ll be invited into people’s lives in their most vulnerable moments. And sometimes, you’ll have to navigate it all while running on fumes.

Please don’t forget the same grace you give to others, you must give to yourself. You will make mistakes. You will feel overwhelmed. And you will keep going not because you’re invincible, but because you’re anchored in something more profound. You care. You keep showing up, and that matters.

Be the kind of nurse who listens without judgment. Remember,a patient is more than what’s written in the chart. Be the kind of nurse who treats every person as someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone’s everything.

Be the kind of nurse who is kind and gives grace. It will serve your patients well, and it will serve you in ways you have yet to imagine.

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Biosketch: Leslie Welch Hopkins, DNP, APRN, BC, FNP-BC, ANP-C

Dr. Leslie Welch Hopkins is a seasoned nurse practitioner, educator, and academic leader with more than 30 years of experience advancing primary care nursing practice and education. In September of 2025, she will begin serving as Director of the Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Residency Program at the Tennessee Valley Healthcare System – U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.  She is also the Chief of Community Partnerships and co-founder of Bad Apple, LLC.  Previously, she was an Associate Professor of Nursing and the Specialty Director of the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, where she taught for 30 years.

Dr. Hopkins holds dual board certifications as a Family and Adult Nurse Practitioner and has provided primary care across diverse clinical settings for decades. She maintains active clinical practice in a faculty-run clinic, integrating teaching, evidence-based practice, and direct patient care.

A dedicated educator and mentor over the years, Dr. Hopkins coordinated and taught a wide range of graduate nursing courses, with a focus on adult-gerontology primary care, cardiovascular health, and the transition to advanced practice. She chaired numerous academic committees at Vanderbilt and is a past Vice Chair of the Faculty Senate.

Her scholarly contributions include peer-reviewed publications on women’s health, artificial intelligence in healthcare, primary care diagnostics, and interprofessional suicide prevention strategies. She is an editorial board member for The Nurse Practitioner: The American Journal of Primary Healthcare and has authored multiple textbook chapters in widely adopted nursing references.

Dr. Hopkins is deeply involved in national leadership through the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF), where she serves on the Board of Directors and represents committees focused on telehealth and curricular leadership. She has received multiple honors, including the NONPF Outstanding Service Award and the Sara K. Archer Award for Student Learning at Vanderbilt.

Dr. Hopkins earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Duke University, her Master of Science in Nursing from Vanderbilt University, and a Bachelor of Science from Lipscomb University. A respected speaker and advocate, she is passionate about mentoring new nurses and nurse practitioners and fostering innovative partnerships that improve access to care and support the nursing workforce.