I am working on my doctorate, working full-time as a nurse educator, and during summers and breaks I return to the ICU, my first love :) I was working in the ICU last weekend when a coworker asked me if I missed working as a "real" nurse. I found this surprising, although I probably shouldn't. Over time, including on this board, I've heard over and over the same misconception that if you're not a bedside hospital nurse, you're not a "real" nurse.
There are a thousand permutations on the theme: LTC nurses aren't real nurses, people who work outside of "unit x" aren't real nurses, people who are LPNs aren't "real" nurses, ad nauseum. I am so tired of this. A favored theme seems to be "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." I feel that despite working my butt off to stay current in my practice and bring relevant education to students, these contributions must have no value in my peers' eyes.
To me, a nurse comes in so many forms; different but equal, all with an important role. Why does nursing only respect the value of ONE type of nursing? It's like Pinocchio, worried about being a "real" boy. I wish more time was spent recognizing our peers unique skills and less spent trying to tear each other down. That's all, just a vent and a wish things would change.
Some of the attitude you may be getting stems from the current climate that seems to say if you "only" have your BSN and are working at the bedside you are the bottom feeders of the nursing profession. I can't imagine how bad it must be for
ADRNs, Diploma grads, or LPNs. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told I should go back for my MS in ....... Nursing. "You are too smart to keep working at the bedside" seems to be the general attitude. Well, I hate to break it to everybody out there- smart, tallented, skilled, thinking bedside nurses are contributing to good patient care. Nurses who work the bedside are not just those too dumb or too lazy to go back for a MS. I like what I do most days, and there is nothing else in Nursing that currently attracts me. I think you may be getting some flack from those of us at the bedside that are beginning to feel like we fell asleep in the back of the
"nursing career bus" and everyone else has jumped off at the last stop.
Specializes in med-surg, urgent care, emergency med.
I like the bedside nursing..I'm only an LVN, but I'm content and very happy. I haven't really given much thought to pursing my RN...Like in the military...the higher you go..the more BS & paperwork you need to deal with. I'd rather give my time to actually helping and healing people (the foundation of nursing..for both RNs & LVNs). So what if you have a MSN or BSN...it really doesn't reflect your knowledge as a nurse or caregiver. An RN with a diploma is just as good and an MSN and it doesn't necessarily reflect on what you know as a nurse anyway. It's good if you want to be a desk jockey and leave the patient care setting, is how i look at it, I do understand tho that it's needed if you want to the whole NP, FNP and so on....but it still doesn't reflect on you're nursing capabilities.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I will really put myself out on a limb here and say that even some of the nurses who descend from the carpeted domain with their clipboards can be "real nurses". They don't post here very often (gee I wonder why?) - she joked about "yes, I crossed over into the dark side" but she had a job to do and wanted to do it well and explained what it was like to be one of "them".
Aside from the obvious point that anyone with a nursing license is a real nurse unless he or she is a zombie, maybe a "real nurse" is in what is in your head, your heart and your hands? That an instructor with empathy who cares enough to remember bedside or keep a toe in as the OP has, can quite possibly be more of a "real nurse" than one on the floors who does the bare minimum and barely conceals contempt for patients and co-workers alike?
I really enjoy poking fun at some of the weirder new-agey influences in nursing theory, but I also feel very fortunate that we have a level of people who deal in the realm of abstractions and ideas, because even if you think it's a bunch of hooey it causes you to think about why . . . our profession would be much the poorer without them despite all the challenges faced. Whether we like it or not we hold a special place in the public mind. Nothing new about dealing with such abstractions. Not everyone wants to. I'm just glad some of us do. Maybe because I've been reading this board for 7 years and read posts from educators who really feel the negativity - and I know they don't deserve it. Pollyanna out. :)
I think it is a matter of lack of enlightenment. I think once u have the nursing degree, you are a nurse. There is nothing real or unreal about that. I think the richness and diversity of this profession tends to be of mystery to the majority. The nursing profession in particular has a disadvantage that the public seems always to be unclear of what our roles and responsibilities are anyway. Most continue to believe that all we do is empty bed pans. So, for one nurse to refer to the themselves more real than the other is simply ignorant and disrespectful. We need to, in fact, take such adjectives out of our vocabulary to further educate others on what we do and are capable of doing...administration, clinic, bedside schools, researchers etc. We all contribute to patient care one way or the other and deserve the respect and acknowledgment regardless. The fact that some choose to remain at bedside does not make them more 'real' than others.
I disagree. I have been LPN for over 25 yrs. I started out on med surg, then did over 10 yrs on skilled nursing facilities, which is fast paced with very sick complex patiients who are admitted from the hospital for rehab and recovery. Some may be admitted to recover and then go to LTC. Just because skilled nursing facilities are in a nursing home, many nurses consider us not important. I have had RNs, come work with us from hospitals, and always end up saying they cant beleive how hard it is. Skiled nursing units deal with patients with anything from a hip fx: to Coronary bypass surgery. We hang IV'S , TPN'S, done it all. I am so tired of of people looking down on the LTC nurses. I have since worked as a Primary Care Nurse, then to a RCM. I now work in an office all day, attend meetings that involve discussing my patients care ie; nutrition, safety, skin, and care conferences. I do the MDS'S, which is a complete assessment of the resident and implementing thier plan of care. I deal with the staff concerns, complaints, families and so much more. Tell me I am not a nurse because i now sit in an office? So to those who decide after working 20 yrs as a floor nurse decide someday to work as a educator in nursing or as a nurse manganger as myself, remember this makes you no longer a nurse. How rediculous, people. My license still says I am a Nurse! I still interact with my patients, and jump in when needed in emergencies. So untill you end up changing your role in nursing some day in the future, dont judge what TYPE of nursing others may do, you just may change your mind some day too.Think about it for a moment, if every nurse wanted to only be a floor nurse, and no one wanted to work in the OR, ICU, LTC, and as DNS, RCM, Nurse Educator, preceptor and so on, nursing would have some serious problems. Thank God for all the different nurses we have out there. RN, LPN, wether its in LTC, or critical care, we all work together as a team and make it work. if you have been hired as a nurse, you are a nurse period.
Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
I am working on my doctorate, working full-time as a nurse educator, and during summers and breaks I return to the ICU, my first love :) I was working in the ICU last weekend when a coworker asked me if I missed working as a "real" nurse. I found this surprising, although I probably shouldn't. Over time, including on this board, I've heard over and over the same misconception that if you're not a bedside hospital nurse, you're not a "real" nurse.
Yes, and then you start telling YOURSELF that you aren't a real nurse, or aren't enough ... we ought to hold each other up a little better ... no wonder we are all so tired! Altho I have found always one or two people wherever I work, without whom I would not have made it! Thank God for them!
People don't always think before they speak, or even know what they are saying ... so there are always random mistakes. but when it becomes a pattern, when you hear it a lot - you have to wonder Thanks for venting
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
interesting. so, despite the fact that i still work actively in the icu, the second i enter the doors of the school to teach, i cease to be a "real" nurse? i suppose that would make me roughly 25% real, since i teach full time and only work icu w/e, holidays, and summer. i wonder who will teach students since nurse educators aren't real. it can't be a bedside nurse, since that bedside nurse will then also cease to be a real nurse. sounds like quite the conundrum!
i have a close friend who just retired after 45 years as an rn. i'm sure she will be sad to learn that now that she's retired, she also has ceased to be "real" and her contributions to the field have now been invalidated.
if you spend any time at the bedside taking care of real patients, you're a real nurse. (although if you're on the "two year plan" and just taking care of patients because you have to in order to get into anesthesia school, i wouldn't quibble if someone wanted to tell you you're not a real nurse.) lpn, rn, associate's degree or bsn, if you actually touch patients, you're a real nurse. if you're in management or education and you actually remember what it's like to be at the bedside and take care of patients, you're a real nurse.
you're not a real nurse if you wear gucci to work every day, sit in your corner office and devise way to get rid of rns and/or lpns and haven't been near a patient in a quarter of a century. or even a quarter of a year, if you've lost sight of the rewards and challenges of being at the bedside. if you don't understand why psych nurses cannot staff the ccu or ccu nurses can't work l & d, you're not a real nurse. if you try to enact policies that are impossible to follow, you're not a real nurse. (for example, enforcing a "no lift" policy, but failing to have lifting equipment available.) and if you're sitting at your father's bedside freaking out because the guest tray had vanilla pudding instead of chocolate, or because the staff hasn't provided a cot for your mother's use while dad's 'tombstone t's' are escaping your notice (even though you "used to be a cardiac nurse"), you're not a real nurse.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i can totally sympathize with the op's anger.... everyone who holds a license is real and should be treated with dignity and respect! it is disrespectful to say to someone that they are not a "real nurse".... myself and the rest of the world thinks that a nurse educator is at the top of the "food chain".. those in the "trenchs" are just jealous...
why is it that so many managers and educators, nps and crnas believe that those "in the trenches" are jealous of them? i can assure you that i am not jealous. but while i agree that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect, i disagree that everyone who holds a license is "a real nurse." i know many license-holders who have never been near an actual patient and have no idea what the job entails. despite the "rn" or "lpn" after their names, they cannot call themselves "real nurses."
my sister holds a doctrate, and works in management. she may have been a "real nurse" at one time, but when her priorities focus on "pillow fluffing" to the neglect of airway, breathing and circulation she is not a real nurse. no matter how much she thinks she knows.
I guess I'm not "a real nurse" since I'm an RN in LTC, lol. Little do some nurses realize, LTC is not much different from acute care these days. I know, because I've worked there, too. And I like my residents :) They need some TLC.
I see it as I am a "real nurse" because I am the one with the client, helping them at the bedside every way I can, watching them suffer. That's what makes me a real nurse.
The nurse who sits behind the desk with her degrees and writes about it all, to me, isn't a real nurse. A nurse but not like me.
Ah, but real nurses with their degrees are also at the bedside
if you spend any time at the bedside taking care of real patients, you're a real nurse. (although if you're on the "two year plan" and just taking care of patients because you have to in order to get into anesthesia school, i wouldn't quibble if someone wanted to tell you you're not a real nurse.) lpn, rn, associate's degree or bsn, if you actually touch patients, you're a real nurse. if you're in management or education and you actually remember what it's like to be at the bedside and take care of patients, you're a real nurse.
you're not a real nurse if you wear gucci to work every day, sit in your corner office and devise way to get rid of rns and/or lpns and haven't been near a patient in a quarter of a century. or even a quarter of a year, if you've lost sight of the rewards and challenges of being at the bedside. if you don't understand why psych nurses cannot staff the ccu or ccu nurses can't work l & d, you're not a real nurse. if you try to enact policies that are impossible to follow, you're not a real nurse. (for example, enforcing a "no lift" policy, but failing to have lifting equipment available.) and if you're sitting at your father's bedside freaking out because the guest tray had vanilla pudding instead of chocolate, or because the staff hasn't provided a cot for your mother's use while dad's 'tombstone t's' are escaping your notice (even though you "used to be a cardiac nurse"), you're not a real nurse.
let the flames begin.
but sometimes they do some real nursing again ....
i had a couple of nurse administrators rush down to my ed with a visitor that had 'coded' on their floor. they had him in a wheelchair, both pleased as punch that they had 'resusitated' the patient and obviously chuffed that they could still remember everthing after all these years.....and were still 'real nurses' obviously.
they were both adrenaline hyped, flushed and sweaty and somewhat exhausted.
the patient likely had postural hypotension and had a syncope - and recovered quickly all by himself.
he looked great when he arrived, sitting up in the wheelchair a&o ; everything lovely.
i thanked them both profusely and told them they had obviously not forgotten their bedside skills and that they were just wonderful
Any nurse administrator worth their salt is able...and willing...to do the above. I was speaking exclusively of those nurse administrators who, themselves, think that to help pull a patient up or roll up their sleeves and pitch in when we are swamped on occasion is beneath them somehow. If I can't find another staff member and ask the DON to help...whether it's to hold a patients thighs while I cath or help roll a patient off a bedpan....the difference between a real nurse and a fake one is their willingness and ability to jump to it with a minimum of attitude and eye rolling. Patients come first people! I know pushing a pencil is important to our profession too but sometimes being in admin means willing to do whatever it takes to get the job DONE!!
I have had DONs that don't mind getting their hands dirty and nurse educators with students that were awesome teachers and real nurses...I have also seen the worst fake nurses...in all fields who could give two sh$&$ about patient care and had the not my patient, not my hall, not in my job description attitude. You tell me...can they call themselves real?
) - she joked about "yes, I crossed over into the dark side" but she had a job to do and wanted to do it well and explained what it was like to be one of "them".
Thanks for venting
suanna
1,549 Posts
Some of the attitude you may be getting stems from the current climate that seems to say if you "only" have your BSN and are working at the bedside you are the bottom feeders of the nursing profession. I can't imagine how bad it must be for
ADRNs, Diploma grads, or LPNs. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told I should go back for my MS in ....... Nursing. "You are too smart to keep working at the bedside" seems to be the general attitude. Well, I hate to break it to everybody out there- smart, tallented, skilled, thinking bedside nurses are contributing to good patient care. Nurses who work the bedside are not just those too dumb or too lazy to go back for a MS. I like what I do most days, and there is nothing else in Nursing that currently attracts me. I think you may be getting some flack from those of us at the bedside that are beginning to feel like we fell asleep in the back of the
"nursing career bus" and everyone else has jumped off at the last stop.