Nurses don't do anything!

[~FutureNurse~]

I have been so excited that I got into nursing school! When I tell my family and friends I have had more than 2 people say, "Nurses don't do anything, and get paid a lot!" Can you guys believe this? It really makes me mad that people think this. I am not a nurse yet, but I believe that nurses are very smart, important people! My husbands grandmother is a house keeper at a local hospital. When I told her I was going to nursing school her reply was, "they don't do anything except start IVs, and sit at the nurses station and talk!!":no:

What do you guys think?

[student456]

seeing that they arent nurses and havent worked as a nurse they don't know what they are even talking about! You'll see what I mean when you go through NS/become an RN

Good luck!

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

I was a hospital RN for many years. I was an IV therapist for some of them. It takes a great deal of skill to never miss a vein. The only time I ever sat at the nurse's station and talked was when I was discussing patient or hospital related business. I worked with an LPN who saw me one time on the phone getting complicated orders from a doctor which I am sure she did not understand and continually bad-mouthed me to everyone for weeks later about how I was talking on the phone when she needed my help with a patient. I had to finally take her aside and have a frank talk with her that never did solve the problem--someone's perception is a strong thing to break. I hardly ever had time to take a meal break or potty break on the job! Comments like the ones you have heard come out of ignorance of what a job and profession requirements are. They are also born of false perceptions. If this lady sees a nurse at just the right moment in time out of an 8 or 12 hour shift, the other work that nurse actually did during her shift is automatically invalid. That's how judgment works. That's why we should constantly seek to be nonjudgmental--because things are sometimes never what they seem to be.

And how would someone who is untrained as a nurse know what a nurse does? How do we know what a housekeeper's job is having not been trained in it? I learned more about what housekeepers actually did when I was a head nurse and had to follow up on what they were doing on my unit! Just be courteous and respectful of this lady's opinion. She isn't going to change it by you getting into an argument with her. It's better that she learn about what a nurse is by observing your behavior and demeanor (acceptance and kindness) so she can change their own opinion, if that's possible. It's better that she eventually go around saying something like, "Well, my grandson's wife is a nurse and she's not like that at all!" But, she's not going to say that on your word. Then, again, she may never come around and change her opinion. So what, I say. I'm comfortable in knowing that what I do at my job is the best I have to offer every day I show up for work. That's good enough for me. That's called self-esteem. I don't need the approval of uneducated relatives. If they made comments like you heard, I'd just ignore them and secretly be laughing about it.

[Sterren, BSN, RN]

Once upon a time I thought that too. Now, I know better, but it's not surprising when a lot of people base their knowledge of nursing on TV shows like ER where the docs do EVERYTHING. It makes for good entertainment but it's unrealistic. My family responded similarly, and both my husband and I were surprised at how huge a nurse's body of knowledge has to be. The general public just doesn't know, until they've had a family member hospitalized and seen for themselves that it's the nurses who do the vast majority of the hands-on patient care.

I had an older relative in the hospital shortly after I started school. One of my parents went to visit, and when they came back told me "I can't believe how much nurses do. Do you have to do all that too?" - there was true shock and surprise at how much nurses know and do.

I wish more people knew. I think we as a profession would have a lot more respect if more people knew what this job really means.

[kcochrane]

If this lady sees a nurse at just the right moment in time out of an 8 or 12 hour shift, the other work that nurse actually did during her shift is automatically invalid. That's how judgment works. That's why we should constantly seek to be nonjudgmental--because things are sometimes never what they seem to be.

Oh how true. I love how a family member comes in the last few minutes of my shift while I finish my documentation and believes that all I did all shift was sit behind the desk.

The bottom line is that if nurses did nothing all day and got paid really well, there wouldn't be a nursing shortage right now.

[lainith]

Those sorts of comments just make me laugh. I worked at my local hospital for several years while I was in high school. I worked in Nutrition Services and although I rarely saw nurses or doctors for that matter do anything besides eat lunch I knew they did more than that! Even when I left the floor to take up carts or nourishments or whatever, I almost never saw more than one or two nurses at the desk and I know dang well there were more nurses than those two on that floor. Those kinds of comments are born out of ignorance. And let me say this... even if all nurses did was start IV's, that's more than a lot of other people can say they do at their jobs. (Case in point - I dated a guy in college who was a train engineer and he would call me all the time during his shift or I would call him and I had woke him up! He confessed to me that during a 12 hour shift he might do an hour or two of real "work". Lol.)

[mrs.captain.kangaroo]

Obviously the people who make these comments have never been a patient in a hospital or had a family member in a hospital.

I didn't know all that nurses did until my father was in the hospital and I saw who did all the work - it was the nurses. They were in the room constantly taking care of my dad and very kind to us if we had any concerns/questions. They saw the whole picture while the drs. were in there for about 5 minutes and contradicted each other according to their specialty. (The nurses did not contradict the doctor but when they heard what the drs. were saying and how we were reacting, they must have gotten the floor doctor because he came in and explained the full picture to us - from what the cardiologist was saying, we though my dad was doing better when actually what happened was a very bad sign overall).

The nurse was there and explained what would happen when we made the decison to take my dad off the ventilator and that they were giving him morphine so that he would not feel the terrible sense of gasping for breath. The nurse was there when my dad gave his last breath one hour later and hugged us all.

I and my family are forever grateful for the care nurses gave my dying father. One of them was a final semester nursing student. And we told them so.

If anyone tells you nurses don't do anything, tell them to talk to me!

[locolorenzo22, BSN, RN]

When I first started working in the hospital....I was in my 2nd semester of NS....and I had no rotations working in acute care yet. My overwhelming sense was that..."geez, all these guys do is read charts, type on the computer, and pass meds..." Yet, as I went forward in school and got more shift under my belt, it became clearer that they do a lot more than that....most of them don't eat until 7 hours into a 12 hour shift because they're so busy.....

Now I have nurses tell me that they're glad when they see I have their patients because they know they're not going to worry about them...if something's wrong, I'm going to come get them and we'll fix the problem....and I graduate in 1 month! I hope that I can be that nurse who changes the perception of nurses in one family member's mind everyday......cause we do a lot....

[santhony44, MSN, RN, NP]

You know, I've never had anyone make that sort of remark to me, not in my entire 25 year nursing career.

I don't know if I've been lucky, if that perception wasn't around when I went into nursing, or if it's just that none of my family nor friends have had the nerve to say what they really think around me!

I agree with other posters, though, you aren't going to be able to argue people out of their perceptions. As for your husband's grandmother, it may just be possible that she may work in the rare place where the nurses don't actually do much, though I doubt it. It's much more likely that she is completely misunderstanding the situation. Maybe she just happens to see the only times the nurses do sit down, or she doesn't realize that they have to sit down to do computer charting. Maybe she thinks the unit clerk is a nurse, or she doesn't understand that the charge nurse spends a lot more time at the desk than the other nurses do, while doing things like staffing, calling doctors, following up labs, calling pharmacy, etc etc etc.

Let the remarks just roll off. I'd probably try to smile and say "Of course, that's why I'm going to nursing school!" Someday, those folks may be in the unforunate position of finding out they're wrong.

[HeartsOpenWide, RN]

I think the problem is that anyone can see into the nurses station; its not like a teller window at bank...so when a nurse is sitting down to chart or on the phone getting orders, to the layman looking in, it looks like she is just 'hanging out'.

[WDWpixieRN, RN]

:smackingf :barf01:

As someone who is just finishing their last semester, the above about sums up my feelings on anyone who thinks nurses have it easy....some days I wonder why I left my "cushy" IT job where I worked about 5 out of the 7 or 8 hours I was in the building and made about 25% more money than I will be making as a Graduate Nurse....puleeeeeeeeeeeeze......

(in case anyone cares, the reason I left is that I felt empty at the end of that "day"; after staying over 2 hours last night so my RN and I could complete our work, I had the most content feeling of actually "accomplishing" something. I only had one quick lunch early in our 12-hour shift and 2 quick runs to the bathroom all day.)

[nursekatie22, RN]

ha! to those people i say, "********!!" (with an emphasis on the **** part!)