Nightingale Pledge and Nursing hats at pinning ceremony....

Nightingale pledge, lol.... Give me a break. Hand over the degree and let me get the hell out of this NS crap.

It's not petty BS; I wouldn't want to be a part of that ceremony either...and I'm a girl! I would have real issues with saying that pledge outloud and you wouldn't catch me dead in a hat. I'd wear the hat for a silly class photo if it was staged to purposefully look silly, but that's about it. Anyway, your concerns are founded for lots of women and men everywhere. Sorry you have to go throught it but good for you for graduating! That's what counts anyway, huh?

As a guy, I thought our pinning ceremony was along the lines of what high school girls would want to do. I decided not to go. Funny, now that I think back, my class was mostly teenage girls or young women still stuck in that phase of life. Some of my friends and I went out for margaritas. The toasts we gave each other meant more than any ceremony the school could have given us.

Our pinning included the pledge, which I had no idea was coming until it was thrust upon us in rehearsal. I couldn't believe the wording. I am a person who believes that my word is my bond. As such, I refused to utter the portions that I did not like. That included, among other bits, the part about never doing anything mischievous... that's a little overboard, isn't it? I mean, being mischievous is to cause annoyance or minor injury, or being irresponsibly playful, according to Merriam Webster. I'm not going to promise never to be annoying! That's just ridiculous!

I agree that the pledge is outdated and the white hats come on. I too had to endure the torture of tradition, my arguement that did get some of the females to come to my side was it too was tradition for the nurses to stand up in respect when the physician entered the room is that the type of nostalgia your looking for with white clothing and purity pledges.

If my pinning ceremony is going to have us say this ridiculous Nightingale pledge (which wasn't written by Nightingale btw), I'm not attending. I'm hearing from a couple sources that we do say the Nightingale pledge in my program. I'll have to be a thorn in the pinning committee's side and try to get it changed if this is the case.

That pledge is absurdly outdated and needs to stay in another century. I am not inviting my family to some event where the solemn pledge would reduce us, even if just momentarily, to angelic-Victorian-virginal-physician handmaidens. My family knows little about nursing, and I've tried to inform them about nurses' knowledge, expertise, and responsibilities. They tended to have old-fashioned ideas that nurses are basically handmaidens. So to reinforce that at my own pinning ceremony? I don't think so.

Plus, we should be moving away from virtue-scripting in nursing, not reinforcing it. In some ways, nursing really needs to grow up already.

I knew I would use the barfing emoticon someday for something revolting, and this is it.

With traditional religious implications, it's "code" for virginal to many.

I realize that, but that's certainly not the only possible meaning, and I still don't see how it's gender-specific (only applicable to females, that is).

BTW, don't interpret my comments/questions here to suggest that I'm defending use of the original Pledge.

OK. I understand you aren't defending use of the original pledge.

It is my opinion that there is too much religious baggage having to do with "purity" and controlling women's sexuality to use the word "purity." "Integrity" would be a better choice, IMO.

You know many young women in the U.S. are giving "purity pledges" to their families, and in particular, to their fathers?