Now and then The ABPN: past, present and future

Abstract

So, the Association of British Paediatric Nurses is 70 years young (Randall 2008). Today, the ABPN is perhaps less well known than it once was. There was a time when every paediatric nurse would have been familiar with the organisation’s distinctive badge. As a student, the badge reminded me of Fry’s Five Boys chocolate (produced until 1971). I also thought that the motto Valeant Ubique Liberi (let children everywhere be made well) was overly emotive. Like so many of the early nursing organisations, the ABPN was initiated by rather genteel ladies with openly emotive ideals. They contributed much to the development of nursing but their day eventually came to a close. They were replaced by a new breed of busy professionals with little time for the traditions of the genteel classes or of the emotions embraced by ABPN’s Latin motto. So it was that the ABPN’s fortunes waned somewhat. If you Google ‘ABPN’ today, you get sent across the Atlantic. For in what is perhaps the greatest humiliation, the abbreviation ‘ABPN’ has been adopted by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.