Anyone can get into Nursing.

Nurses General Nursing

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I was so offended yesterday!

I am not yet a nurse, but I am planning to go to college to major in nursing.

My boyfriend & I had a heated discussion yesterday about nursing.

He basically said "Anyone can be a nurse. You are gonna go to college for it, when my sister who dropped outta high school is taking classes & she will be YOUR boss. It is an easy job. You dont really do much; it just consist of memorizing info. You really don't do much work. ANYONE CAN BE A NURSE!"

I got so ****** that he actually did feel that way. I seriously want to be a nurse & for someone to say that all I'm doing is working under a physician & "handing him gloves" hurts my feelings.

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My first reaction would be hurt, anger and defensiveness. This is either a boyfriend who needs to be tossed or educated deeply. He doesn't sound like he is going to support your journey at all.

OTOH, a LOT of people still think of nursing this way. As you grow through your student and then professional role, you need to develop a working description and statement about nursing so you can communicate it is not just a glorified handmaiden position that requires no brainpower.

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Specializes in Medical.

As a nurse I sometimes find it hard to remember than normal people (aka civilians!) know very little about a world that's really familiar to me - they don't usually spend much time in hospitals, and when they do it's as a vistor. What they see is filtered through their uneducated (from a nursing perspective) point of view. So they see: a nurse walking into the room, saying hello, introducing her/himself, and checking how much water's left in the jug.

What they don't see is: assessement of colour, respiratory rate and effort, facial grimacing and other signs of pain or discomfort, checking the colour and volume draining out of a catheter, that the drains are still patent and the rate of drainage hasn't increased, and that the IV rate's accurate, a note of how much fluid's left in the IV flask and in the jug, and a quick appraisal of whether the visitors are tiring the patient and might be encouraged to grab some coffee and give him a break.

If the only exposure your boyfriend's had to what nurses do is from visiting the doctor, visiting people in hospital, and what he's seen on TV, it's not necessarily surprising that he has no idea what nursing involves. Frtunately he has you to help change his perspective.

I can understand your feeling angry and insulted. If you can move past that - after you've had a moment to unclench your teeth and unball your fists! - you could try using this as a teaching experience. Why does he think his dropped out sister would be your boss? What makes him say that it's easy? Where does the information he's basing his opinion on come from?

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Specializes in SRNA.

It wasn't until my better half saw how many classes, how much studying, how many textbooks, and how much knowledge was required to become "just a nurse" that he had any grasp of what went into it. Now, he'll tell anyone how much work it is!!

:yeah:

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

We're not the only profession with an image problem. Some police officers are highly educated. Teachers must have a master's degree in my state but the public has little appreciation for the higher order thinking activities of teaching. You have lots of company in this world. Oh yeah, dump the boyfriend. Someone with your aspirations can do better than that!

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Specializes in Home Health, Geriatrics.

I'd hand him some test questions from an online NCLEX test and see how he does! Also, give him some drug calculations and let him figure them out and see how well he does!

My mother, who would help quiz me during RN school, couldn't even pronounce half the words on the paper. Let your boyfriend have a try at it. See what he thinks then! ;)

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He said that I want to get int nursing because I'm "dumb" && it's fairly easy.

He said they are making nursing easier & easier because it's such a huge shortage & they need more nurses.

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Specializes in LTC/ rehab/ dialysis.

Ah yes, the old "anybody can be a nurse" or the "I've been in the hospital so much, I could do that". My response to those types of folks is "well then just go for it!" Apply to nursing school, become a nurse. Do well in school, do your clinicals, graduate, pass NCLEX, get a job, do your continuing education credits. Just go for it. When I recently told that to a person who said that he could certainly be a nurse because of his recent hospital stay, it took him by suprise. He then said that because he has "such a big ego", he couldn't be "just a nurse", he would have to be a doc. Well have at it my friend. But he couldn't do that, oh no, because at 42 he felt he would be "too old". I told him about a dear friend of mine, a gentleman in his early 60's who's been in school for a while now, relocated because he was accepted into a PA program and is very close to his goal of becoming a PA.

I'm sassy with folks who think it's so easy. Some people speak without thinking at all and it really annoys me. Happy weekend all.

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Specializes in Home Health, Geriatrics.

He needs a wake up call. I wouldn't spend my time arguing with him. Obviously he has been fed a line of bull. What line of work is he in? I would belittle his work. See how he feels. :D

He said you were dumb? I would tell him exactly where he can stick it.....

Yes, I am so evil.. ;)

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First of all, NOT just anyone can get into nursing...at least where I am (Ohio), I hear from a lot of people who'd like to get into nursing school that they can't!

Also, now that I'm almost a junior in a BSN program, I'm truly realizing the seemingly endless amount of knowledge a nurse has to have. Although I of course feel like I know much more than when I started two years ago, I also (if this makes any sense) feel more clueless, too. It's like enormity of the everything a nurse must be proficient at is just starting to set in! So to anyone who thinks nursing is just an "easy way out" (of medical school-at least in some people's minds:no:), it's totally NOT. In order to be a really excellent nurse, one needs huge amounts of scientific and procedural knowledge, assessment skills, critical thinking/prioritizing/time management skills, PATIENCE and people skills....and oh yes, they have to do all this with what seems to be less respect than doctors get (not to knock doctors, this just seems to be the way it is).

Finally, although this comment was not nearly as bad as the one from the boyfriend, I heard something similar from one of my teachers right before I graduated from high school. Upon hearing that I was going to nursing school and eventually wanting to be a nurse practitioner, she told me that she could see me "doing so much more-like running a clinic for impoverished people in Africa." It's almost kind of funny, b/c couldn't I do that as a nurse? :banghead:

But really, the best defense against all of these people who don't quite "get it" is to nicely attempt to re-educate them, and then set out to be the absolute best nurse you can be to show them what nurses really do!

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He needs a wake up call. I wouldn't spend my time arguing with him. Obviously he has been fed a line of bull. What line of work is he in? I would belittle his work. See how he feels. :D

He said you were dumb? I would tell him exactly where he can stick it.....

Yes, I am so evil.. ;)

He currently works at a Dollar Tree. He is 18 & I'm 17.

He wants his career to be in the music field.

He plays the guitar & stuff. Heavily influenced by Bob Dylan.

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We live in Virginia. He said it's the "typical Richmond Girl Job".

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