Respect for nurses

Just wondering, where are you studying right now? if your at UBC let me know!

I'm not a nurse yet, not even a nursing student yet.. I'm a going-to-be
second year science student at UBC.

I've told my friends my future plans of going to Nursing and how I want to
spend a few years in the profession before applying back to school to study
medicine.
From my experiences in dealing with my peers and even family members, who
all strongly try to divert me from nursing by telling me how I have to pick up
after people, and telling me what a crappy job it is.. there really isn't much
I could do to make them keep quiet. All I do is ignore what they say.


Your in the profession hopefully because you want to make the life of another
person better. Thats what I keep telling myself I want to do. It's all for those
people who need help, not for my family, not for my friends.
In your case you should just try to ignore the hierarchy of healthcare
professionals.. don't let it get in the way of what your really there for.

Can't answer this


But yeah, I can understand how you must feel.. from what I understand
the hierarchy goes something like..

Physician - Med Resident - Nurse - Med Student - Nurse Student - Clerk

I'm a frequent reader of the SDN forum as well.. and it seems like your
not the only one in this boat.. Med Students feel the same way! When they
are doing their 3rd/4th year clinical rotations they always get picked on by
nurses because they don't seem to know what they are doing!

When you become a nurse be sure to pick on those med students before
they get all snobby !

I found LTC the most unrewarding area. I worked in one of the best facilities in my region. The workload was immense, the carelevels high. Families were impossible to satisfy. Families feel guilt at placing their elderly in facilities, just don't understand the staffing ratios and how government funding affects the schedules. So, the family guilt is aimed not at the government and its funding policies but at the the Nursing Assistants, the LPN's and the RN's on the floor.

The customer is always right mentality is taking hold in LTC. Which has its good points but families reports and requests need to be taken with a grain of salt. It's a nursing home, your aged family member is here because you are no longer able or willing to care for them. Incontinence products are changed when soiled, but we didn't have the staff to check it every ten minutes, but we did not leave people in them for hours.

Families believe every word out of their relatives mouth (yes, even those with dementia). One family really believed the parent who claimed not to have been fed in days!! Dementia patients will often ask for a meal within minutes of finishing a meal....

When I moved to active treatment, the nurses there admitted they couldn't work LTC because of the workloads, the transfers and the families!

The pay's the same but the stress level of working LTC is huge.