Posters that are not nurses

[Cattitude]

i'm going to keep this nice and polite i promise mods!:)

i'm just hoping that one of the smart student/new nurse posters can answer this.

i know that we have quite a few people on here that do not have the title nurse, either rn/lpn. we have some great, intelligent students,new nurses,cna's, techs, etc. most of them add a lot of interesting elements and variety to the posts and i enjoy reading them.

however, i really want to know something. i have noticed this with several other posters(not the above ones) on several occasions. why on earth would someone that is not a nurse think they could ever tell a nurse how to do their job? or think that limited clinical experience is enough to say they know what a nurse does?

i mean, i would never think of say, jumping in a thread telling ob nurses how they should do something or how they could do it better. i've never done ob (not counting school)

i guess this is just frustrating as it seems people think it's so easy to do this job! it's not, it has hard times, fun times, sad,break your heart in two times. but it's not a job that you can learn how to do in a few semesters of school. it takes years. fortunately, i think that most of our students here know that and respect that.

so, what's the thought on the ones that don't know? is it their egos? overconfidence?

i'm really interested in replies.

[oramar]

Well yes, non nursing persons post here. I consider their voices one voice among many. It is really the experienced nurses whose opinions I dwell upon. I am also interested in nursing students and what they have to say because I find them refreshing, sometimes!

[hope3456, ASN, RN]

It does seem that there are more 'prenursing' people on allnurses than nurses.

On a certain state forum (mine) there is pretty active discussion about attending this 'private' nsg school - it costs over $40,000 but there is no waitlists. It isn't even accredited and it's NCLEX pass rate was only 67% last year. I posted that I see a bit of a problem with this and this school's 'supporters' gave a pretty defensive response.....

I suspect being a RN is a bit overrated - I just don't like seeing people in debt up to their eyeballs and paying back that type of loan on beginning RN wages might be difficult - unless you are independantly wealthy.

IMHO, the waitlist problem sucks but are there not any other jobs out there besides being a nurse?

[PANurseRN1]

Sorry, but I am not going to be lectured to by a non-nurse or student/newbie purely because I happen to need to vent. In those situations, I couldn't care less what they have to say. They haven't been there, done that, gotten the t-shirt. I have been an aspiring nurse, nursing student, and new grad.

This is one of the reasons why I still think a forum for exp. nurses would be beneficial. We have forums for pre-nurses, students, new grads, male nurses, Native American Indian nurses, etc. I realize this has been discussed before and that the board admin. decided against that. i accept that decision, but I can't say I agree with it. It can be really off-putting to have someone who has no clue what it's like to be a licensed nurse for years "tsk-tsking" those of us who have been in this profession for years.

[JasonsGirl1983]

I am a new member of this forum, but have been reading things from this forum for quite some time now, and this one caught my eye. Why do you "seasoned" nurses feel like you need to pick on the newer students? Yeah they may not know what they are talking about and thats fine, but A- Why do you let it bother you B- Why don't you instead of complaining try to teach them how you see it, maybe they will see your point maybe not, but at least you won't sound like a little kid tattling on your friend. Life's too short to complain about people, I know I have better things to do, don't you?

[Dinith88]

Experience is truly everything in nursing,.

THats it. I'll always defer to experience.

In essence, nursing school is about paying lots of money, putting in your time, and learning medical terminology...oh, and spending some 'clinical time' watching real nurses work. So...they come out of nursing school (and can even still be in it) and are able to talk some of the talk (or post :) ) ...But until they 'make their bones' and put in some floor-time, they may as well be a well-read bystander.

It's experience that makes us wise...not a big brain or a new degree.

That may sound mean...but...

I need some coffee.

[NICU_nurse2b]

I am a first year, second semester student in an ASN program. My instructor this semester (happens to be her first time teaching) told us something very important right before our first day of clinicals. Not word for word but it went something like this. What we have learned thus far is textbook, we have to teach you textbook. If you see a nurse doing something a different way then what you have learned, does not make it wrong. This is real-life nursing.

I would never admonish a nurse for doing something a way I was not taught. I might ask her why she did it that way (without sounding like I thought she was wrong) or more than likely I would ask our instructor later.

[PANurseRN1]

I think we should acknowledge that students and new nurses and vets can all offer something valuable. As a student, I'm being taught the most up-to-date research based information. But a vet nurse has been on the job and can offer his/her experience. Personally, I hope to learn from my profs but also learn from the valuable vet nurses.

Why do students assume that because someone has been a nurse for many years, his/her knowledge is out of date and not based on research? Do they think we just got our diplomas and stopped learning/reading/taking CE classes?

How insulting.

[Jules A, MSN]

Oh she seems like a great lady and I posted to her as well. I am not referring to that kind of poster, more to the very obvious "bashing" type of posts. The ones where posters kind of say that nurses are wrong,wrong,wrong for doing such and such and they should do this and that. Of course they have such a vast wealth of knowledge being that they either a) never worked as a nurse or b) have about 2 days of nursing exp.

Well my take on that poster is that she was very critical of nurses, the hospital environment as well as nursing instructors based on her daughter's account of events. Not saying that her kid wasn't 100% correct but I wasn't thrilled that a non-nurse was bashing our profession and was amazed at the people here jumping on the bandwagon to agree.

Nursing school wasn't my favorite experience in life either. I had wonderful intructors, ones that I thought were far less than wonderful and the same with nurses on the hospital floors where I spent my clinicals. As an adult I decided not to let the less than supportive people ruin my experience and truthfully one of my most productivce clinicals was with a terror of an instructor. She had me so scared that my skills improved exponentially, didn't get much sleep that semester but I made sure I knew every thing I needed to know before hitting the floor. Did it need to be that stressful? No but it sure worked wonders in the big picture.

If you are old enough to be a nurse you are old enough to leave Mommy home on orientation day...yup we had one of those.

[prowlingMA]

If I am one of these let me say I am sorry.

I do not pretend to be a nurse, I am a CMA.

I do not think I know even half what a nurse knows, and never mean to tell one how to do their job, just likw I wouldn't want one telling me how to do my job. Two different worlds.

I simply feel that this is an excellent web sight for all that are in the medical field to come together and share their ideas and learn from one another by giving suggestions from experience , asking questions and sharing stories.

If there was such a sight dedicated to CMA I would use it but there is none that I have found.

We " outsiders appreciate the ability to come in to here and hear the " other side" of ddaily medical life.

With the most respect and humbleness

JG CMA

[Roy Fokker, BSN, RN]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please let us NOT "personify" the thread. We are entitled to our opinions - so long as they stay within the ToS.

cheers,

[PANurseRN1]

Well my take on that poster is that she was very critical of nurses, the hospital environment as well as nursing instructors based on her daughter's account of events. Not saying that her kid wasn't 100% correct but I wasn't thrilled that a non-nurse was bashing our profession and was amazed at the people here jumping on the bandwagon to agree.

Nursing school wasn't my favorite experience in life either. I had wonderful intructors, ones that I thought were far less than wonderful and the same with nurses on the hospital floors where I spent my clinicals. As an adult I decided not to let the less than supportive people ruin my experience and truthfully one of my most productivce clinicals was with a terror of an instructor. She had me so scared that my skills improved exponentially, didn't get much sleep that semester but I made sure I knew every thing I needed to know before hitting the floor. Did it need to be that stressful? No but it sure worked wonders in the big picture.

If you are old enough to be a nurse you are old enough to leave Mommy home on orientation day...yup we had one of those.

My feelings exactly. Time to let the girl speak of for herself. You can't homeschool a nursing program. At some point she's going to need to stand on her own two feet. I found a few of her comments very offensive, and found it very odd that the young woman who was supposedly having the problems didn't post on her own.

What is her mother going to do the first time a doctor tears into her daughter? Call him and tell him to stop picking on her daughter?

[PANurseRN1]

Sorry Roy, I posted that before I read your comment.