Is this the publics perception of nurses?

[austin heart]

i am a charge RN in a cvicu. yesterday i took care of a man that was pod1 5 vessel cabg on a balloon pump and multiple drips. i had post op'd the pt the previous day so i had developed a repor with he and his family. he was telling me that his daughter is a physical therapist and works in a DR's office yadda yadda, yadda. he then asks me if i make good money beings that i have no college degree. i informed him that i did have a college degree and was very well educated in my field. he stated that he was unaware that you needed to go to college to be a nurse.

i was shocked! this was a very sick man and needed detailed care! is this the perception of the public that anyone can walk in off the street and get a job as a nurse? do they think it is like checking groceries or something? and this was a very well educated man himself. i am still just shocked and offended! has anyone else had this happen?

thanks for letting me vent

[nurseleigh]

I just have a quick note for all of you that think that the respect would follow if the pay was better. . . . . I have heard comments such as "You must be making a lot of money being a nurse" or "Nurses make really good money" and so on and so forth.

So, seeing as the public seems to think that nurses pay is up there with doctors and lawyers and such, how would actually getting those wages help the publics view of nurses?????

Leigh

p.s. just in case ya'll are reading too much into this post, I am in no way being funny or sarcastic, i am very curious about your answers to this.

[Q.]

Nurseleigh,

You are absolutely right. I have friends even who say that I must be making pretty good money being a nurse. I think this could be due to the ads they see in the paper for agency nurses "Make $60/HOUR!!!" or hear of the double time or overtime nurses collect.

I honestly think that the public does view us in high regard. Recent polls continue to support this. But I guess we have to figure out why they hold this opinion. Is it because they view the job as simply altruistic? (therefore, money shouldn't be important to us)

I guess we have to look at other professions and wonder why they've been able to advance their pay. Look at teachers; there's a thread around here that shows they've managed to increase their pay. Why? What changed?

[MishlB]

Originally posted by Flo1216

Diploma programs actually focus more on the nursing than the associate's does. We have to take the same sciences (a&P 1 and 2. micro, chem, pysch, sociology, english) but not the history and all that. There is a LOT of focus on clinical. I think some people get the wrong idea of diploma programs because you only come out with a diploma and it's 3 years but I actually feel that they prepare you well for the real world. And while the ADN programs here get a month off for Xmas, we only get a week. And our semesters are longer. Not to say that ADN programs aren't good...I just think a lot of people discount the diploma programs because there is not a degree. The boards are the same, the pay is the same and you can always transfer to a 4 year school and get your bachelors.

The diploma program in our state is only 1 year, not three. Where is there a 3 year diploma program??? The ADN program I am in is a degree program, as was the LPN program I graduated from. Isn't it funny how different the program requirements are? I hear now there are 25 credit LPN programs....DUE TO THE SHORTAGE!!! How sick is that?????

[Gator,SN]

I don't know if this pt in particular was thinking about the AD/BSN/diploma, but I am a NA and sometimes the people that I work with with answer the pts when they ask for a nurse, or say things to the pt that make them "think" they are a nurse.

When I first started school, I wanted to go to the OR after graduation. My boss (Surgical services director) used to always say she'd give me a job. Now I have 1 more semester and the tune has changed. She is only hiring surgical techs now. (less money!)The patients do not know the difference, they just assume that all personel in scrubs are nurses.

It is possible that this pt in question had been cared for by a NA at some point who discussed her education and then when the nurse came in he thought the same?? Even if you were performing tasks that are distinctly "nursing" he may not have known the difference. At my job we do glucose checks, hook up suction, VS etc....

Just my thoughts......things like this have happened to me at work and I have to clarify that I am not the nurse...NOT all of my co-workers do so

Gator

[SmilingBluEyes]

This reminds me of the post about the doctor's office where a much-beloved lady there was referred to as "Nurse Judy" . So many here defended that practice when the original poster expressed frustration (rightfully if you ask me) about this.....this lady was NOT a nurse any more than I am JUDGE JUDY. THIS, I believe, hits on a HUGE part of the problem.......the public at large thinks ALL people associated with medical care that are NOT doctors "must be nurses"! It pervades everywhere. I believe the title of "nurse" belongs SOLEY to one who is licensed to do so, period. People who are NOT nurses but are called such should point that fact out. It is the truth, after all.

However, many disagreed in that thread.....That lovely lady should be called "Nurse Judy" if they chose to do so. I think the harm done is insidious and quiet, but harm nonetheless when this is permitted. And--- Herein lies another problem w/our status that we cannot agree upon even here at the boards, among ourselves. Interesting.....like those that say, as long as we squabble among ourselves, little change will effected in the way of our status in public eye---and the pay that goes with it.

[rncountry]

Suzy, some would tell you that teaching pay went up because of their unions. Some would tell you it's because of the shortage of teachers. I would guess it's something between the two. Personally I think it has to do with teachers being able to make the public understand the importance of their role to society.

I think in many ways nursing can be equated to not only teaching but to law enforcement. I always have a tendency when looking at things to ask myself what came before? The past history. When the events of Sept.11 took place I wondered how many people across the country realized how many of the fireman and police that died were from Irish Catholic backgrounds. It was mentioned many times on the news, but how many people knew why there is such a tradition of Irish Catholic in those professions? When that group of people heavily immigrated to this country most went to Boston and New York, the major ports of entry, and when the got here they found that the "Nativists" didn't much care for them or their religion. Most New Englanders were from either a Protestant English background or a Scotch-Irish Protestant background, and the Irish Catholic were looked at as ignorant, dirty people who bred like rabbits. It was common for the Irish Catholic to find signs in stores that said NO IRISH NEED APPLY. But they could become policemen and they could become firemen because those were jobs that were considered "fit" for the Irish. Who cared if "those" people risked their lives in jobs were risking your life was the norm. The jobs paid very little, there was little respect for them and besides it was thought that most of the crime, particularly in New York, came from the Irish immigrants so each to their own kind. So what changed there? Police and fire fighters still don't make loads of money and likely never will. As we witnessed on Sept. 11, it is because the very thing that made the job fit for the Irish is what made these people heroes. The events of the 1920's and 1930's with gangsters and prohibition that changed the public's perception of police particularly. It became an honorable profession.

I believe that the public respects nurses greatly, from my own experiences anyway. What they don't understand is what we do regularly. I believe much of that is because of the media portrayl of nursing, but then nursing has changed a great deal since the 1970's and the media has not kept up most of the time. There are some shows that manage to give a decent look at nursing today, but most do not. I cringe every time I hear Jay Leno make a joke about Mediao and nurses. My kids have heard it and heard it about the times I or another nurse I work with push some physician to do something more appropriate for the patient, the daily little fights we have not only with the doc, but other disciplines. One day there was a commercial on that my son made sure and point out to me when he saw it a second time. It shows a man sitting there who says, I was diagnosed with cancer, my doctor said I had 6 months to live but my daughter A NURSE, told me about the cancer center and now two years later I'M ALIVE. My son, now 19, gets a huge kick out of that commerical, and I must confess so do I. To me it is a small way of letting the public know that nurses know a thing or two.

Many of my patients have made comments about how much nurses make and always their perception is that I make much more than I actually do. Most are quite shocked when I start citing how much nurses make across the country, especially the salary norms in the south. When they find out what nurses make the comment is invaribly that we should be making much more than that. And I always agree. But the truth of the matter is this, like police, like fire fighters, like teachers, our wages are paid by the public, and no matter how much the public respects and knows they need these specific professions they don't want to have to pay more of their taxes, more of the out of pocket cost to support these professions either. The way to change that is to become important enough to society that society is willing to pay for what it gets. I personally equate to rise in teachers pay when there was media who put out studies that showed that American children were far behind Japanese and European children in important fields of learning like math and science. How could America possibly continue to stay on top and compete economically with these areas of the world if we did not ensure our children's education? How can we possibly keep this country safe if we don't put resources into the police and fire depts of the country? And last but not least, how do we assure the health and being able to take advantage of the health technology if we don't put resources into nursing?

When society is willing to put resources into professions that serve the public it is usually because there is some percieved crisis that makes the public feel that if they don't do these things, aren't willing to put out the money than they are at risk personally. The massive nursing shortage that is looming worse in 5 years more than it is even now, may be the best thing that happened to nursing. It gives us a time to be able to educate the public because they are willing to listen now. Ah, the teachable moment.

And I just want to say this about floating. When you float somewhere the other nurses and the charge or manager of the floor don't know what your abilities are, nor do they know what you may or may not be able to do on your floor. Not only do policies differ from facility to facility, they are can be quite different floor to floor. Should you as a nurse be quite comfortable with passing meds or giving injections? Sure. But there is a flip side to that. I worked Neuro ICU and was quite comfortable with the meds we used routinely. But the first time they floated me to the Cardiac unit and I had a patient with IV nitro hanging I was not comfortable. I had never used the drug this way, it was a drug we used only rarely in Neuro and never as a drip. Nor was I used to patients who were vented and awake also. 99% of my patients were comatose, if not because of their injuries than because we gave them meds to put them in that state on purpose. I once floated to Peds ICU and was assigned to a three month old on a vent. I about stroked. This little guy had tubes and IV's, and the fluids going in were through a 60 cc syringe and measured in cc's, I felt like I had landed on an alien planet. Everyone acted like I should be comfortable and know what I was doing but I wasn't and I didn't. After two hours I called the house supervisor and told her so, and begged for her to send me anywhere in the house besides Peds ICU and send another nurse who did know what they were doing. I ended up switching places with an agency nurse who worked the Peds ICU regularly and I went to ER. I guess I would rather be asked if I can pass meds or do an injection than be put in a situation where I didn't know what I was doing at all.

[Q.]

Originally posted by SmilingBluEyes

...that lovely lady should be called "Nurse Judy" if they chose to do so. I think the harm done is insidious and quiet, but harm nonetheless when this is permitted.

Now THAT I agree with!

[SmilingBluEyes]

I respectfully disagee when ANYone says it does not take a nurse to give injections or start IV's---wrong! It takes a nurse's background to understand the RATIONALE behind the "psychomotor tasks" we perform. HARM can and will be done by those performing psychomotor tasks in nursing w/o understanding the why's and if's and what to do when untoward reactions arise. It DOES take a nurse!

[SmilingBluEyes]

**knock me down with a feather, Suzy**. We agree ON SOMETHING.....miracles abound (lol)...ya know I am teasing ya.

[shay]

Originally posted by LasVegasRN

Yeah, Shay. Quit teasin' and come on out!! :chuckle

I AM out...fangs and all...just pop into OB nursing. :chuckle Mrrrroooowwwrrr!!! Hiss!! Spit!!

[Love-A-Nurse]

hummm, could it be that the public's view isn't distorted (nurses do take care of the sick) but only preceived by their interactions with either their personal experiences, or indirect interaction through family members or friends of what and who a nurse is?

i remember years aqo [when i was much younger] when the "nurse" was the "lady in white", or the family friend who helped with the home delivery, or who told you old family remedies to take care of that toothache, they were viewed as "nurses". before the mid-1800's, nursing was without organization, education, or social status and basically did what a mom does for her family when they are ill or depressed (provide security, love, give the medicine the doctor prescribed to the loved one, etc).

i respectfully disaqree that an entry level [bsn] will help to rectify the concept of a nurse of the public if we still have those who are, like myself, an lpn (a nurse) or cna (who most think are nurses, especially the elderly, ltc).

even in 2002, there are a lot of people who do not know to enter this profession (some do not know if they should be an lpn or rn) or are suggested not to because it is not a good field....and "we" ourselves play it "down on the left hand and up on the right hand...

[rncountry]

The nurse Judy thing makes me think of a patient family we had recently. The patient was colonized VRE, no infection. However we do contact precautions on both colonized and active VRE and MRSA. The family could not get it. They acted like the patient had the plague. Would sit in the room not touching her with gown, mask and gloves. All over the nursing staff about the appropriate way to do contact precautions, insisted on a private room instead of cohorting like the patient was in.

Ended up having a family meeting with myself as infection control, the charge nurse, the nurse manager(Clinical Coordinator) and our ID doc who heads the IC committee and various family members. The family member who was causing the most problems flat insisted on a private room stating she had been a nurse for 26 years and that she had called coworkers who also told her they had never seen a VRE patient that wasn't in a private room. Since I knew this family member had not been a nurse, but had been an aide, my big mouth popped out with "You do know that it is unethical if not illegal to identify yourself as a nurse when you are not don't you?" Lord, the total silence in that room made me quite sure that I would lose my job for being so blunt. Instead all of a sudden my manager backed me up and so did the doc. I then offered her a copy of the CDC guidelines which she declined.

I wish I could say the meeting helped with the family, but it didn't. But at least the family member didn't identify herself as a nurse again.