To cap or not to cap!

Nursing Students General Students

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I would love to hear feedback and/or opinions from other students on the whole nursing cap issue. I am graduating in May....Yeah! and there's a lot of controversy around the wearing of the nursing cap for pictures and pinning ceremony. In previous year's (including this one) a majority of students have voted to wear the cap and the nursing instructors have just said, if some of you wear them then all must wear them.

I fully support the students who want to wear the cap. I realize that it is personally meaningful to them. It's not to me and I feel it should be an individual decision. Everyone says that it would look weird if some wore it and some didn't. I don't agree. At our school the insturctors don't wear them and of course the male students don't. Just wondering how other students feel about this issue.

Specializes in Geriatrics.
I would never wear that hat. It harkens back to the days when women were wearing aprons too. There is absolutely nothing professional about it. If you want to get sentimental about a piece of linen and cardboard on your head, then go to a photography studio afterwards and get your picture taken. All the hat does is push nursing back to the "handmaidens of the physician" days. Remember those good ol' days, when they didn't even have polio vaccine?

WOW, this statement really got me!! The fact that nursing has come such a long way made me even more proud to wear my cap at graduation!! To say that a nursing cap is nothing more than a peice of cardboard and linen is insulting to all those who have gone before us and fought for us to have more control and involvement in our patient's care. True... no longer are we the "handmaidens of the physician" but how did we get were we are today??? I guess I may sound sentimental, but the nursing cap to me is a symbol of respect for the nursing profession. We too had students in our class that didn't want to wear the cap, but we had to. I didn't want to wear a dress, but I had to. Of course the cap isn't practical for everyday but I feel for the graduation ceremony it should be worn. Just my 2 cents.

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Specializes in Maternity & Well Baby Nursery.
WOW, this statement really got me!! The fact that nursing has come such a long way made me even more proud to wear my cap at graduation!! To say that a nursing cap is nothing more than a peice of cardboard and linen is insulting to all those who have gone before us and fought for us to have more control and involvement in our patient's care. True... no longer are we the "handmaidens of the physician" but how did we get were we are today??? I guess I may sound sentimental, but the nursing cap to me is a symbol of respect for the nursing profession. We too had students in our class that didn't want to wear the cap, but we had to. I didn't want to wear a dress, but I had to. Of course the cap isn't practical for everyday but I feel for the graduation ceremony it should be worn. Just my 2 cents.

:yeahthat:

I'm sorry for not considering how the men in nursing feel. :smackingf Those caps are probably a bit much although Klinger is MASH didn't look too bad? :cool: I am curious though. What can nursing tradition do for the men of nursing?

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Didn't monks used to give nursing care? Maybe the men could wear monk wigs with the bald patch on top and the hair at the sides.

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It seems a shame that when other professions have a long line of traditions, special ceremonies, hats, handshakes,etc., that nursing doesn't, because we are a profession as well.

so what specifically were you referring to here? I don't know of any special ceremonies, hat, handshakes in other professions. Since we are trying to get nursing up to the same professional level as lawyers, do you mean like how judges still wear wigs (oops I guess they don't do that anymore, do they?) Hmm, I wonder how come everyone in the courtroom can figure out who the judge is if they don't wear wigs?

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Specializes in Maternity & Well Baby Nursery.

The judges wear black robes though. As a profession we don't even wear all white any more.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.

I am set to graduate in 2008 and hope we wear caps. I really feel that they are an important symbol to nurses. I understand not wanting to wear it when you are working but I really think it should be work for graduation. I think it's a tradition that really needs to stay. With so many people in the medical profession looking the same at work the cap is one thing that sets the nurses apart and wearing them at graduation is the least that can be done.

I'm a 30 year old nursing student...so not super young, not really up there but just at the right age to remember my mother wearing her white cap and then having the red velvet stripe that I believe was placed when she was "certified"...something I don't think they do anymore.

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Specializes in LTC, med-surg, critial care.

I was capped and pinned at my LVN graduation last year. That cap is now dusty and in a box somewhere the pin is...lost. Honestly, I went to the ceremony because I had known the Director of Nursing since I was a child and didn't want to dissapoint her. In all reality, I wish I hadn't gone. I was bored and just wanted it to end so I could take off my hat and robe.

When I finish the RN program in May I'm not going to the pinning ceremony (no caps at this school). I'm not even going to the graduation. I'm proud of being a nurse but those types of events aren't really my thing.

And if you're wondering if I'm going to celebrate my graduation at all well, that's what my vacation in Mexico is for.

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I'm glad someone else chimed in about the men. What exactly are they suppose to wear on their heads? I think nursing has come a very long way towards becoming more evidence based, more scientific, more integrated. Why do want to bring back an impractical headpiece just for the sake of tradition when to do so means that a portion of our profession will be automatically ignored? Can't we come up with something new that can symbolize nursing?

My husband graduated from nursing school 1.5 years ago. At the end of the program some committee of students decided that everyone had to wear white at the pinning ceremony. All of the men in his class really disliked the idea, but they were a minority so their opinion didn't matter. Of course all the women looked very pristine and angelic in their pure whites, but the guys really did look stupid. They looked like orderlies from the old timey movies. I think that business attire would have looked much more professional and inclusive because the guys wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb.

As for the patients who like their nurses in all white with the cute caps, they are a dying breed. I'm 35 years old and have only seen one nurse who dressed like that in my whole life. She was the exception, not the rule. There will come a day when nobody even remembers what old fashioned nurses use to wear and won't care. That's kinda sad in a way, but time marches on.

Just my 0.2 cents

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.

If we wore caps at least we'd stand out from the medical assistants who like to "claim" that they are nurses.

What happened to the idea of RN's and LPN's wearing patches on the right arm of their scrubs to let patients and families know who is the nurse? I still like that idea.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

I just graduated this past Thursday and we wore traditional nurses caps and white dressed and hose and white shoes. It was totally traditional and it looked awesome. I already graduated in a regular cap and gown from high school and college and I LOVED how this is tradition. It is a nursing school graduation and I LOVED that we dressed this way. We all looked so awesome, so traditional, so nursey! We were not allowed to wear our hair down, it HAD to be up off our collars. We had a capping ceremony back in february when we got our caps, so they are ours, we earned them and it's part of the tradition of nursing that I am darned proud to have been able to be a part of. Sure I will never wear it on the floor, but I have it and I am proud of it! if you want to see pictures I'll be happy to post a link.

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Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

Sure, post a link. We love seeing them, don't we?

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y41/1blue2pink/

Here is a link to my grad photos.

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