Why pinning?

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

I don't graduate until November, but since the majority of users will graduate between now and June, I've decided to bring this up now.

To the best of my knowledge, the nursing school Pinning Ceremony comes to us from the time when the vast majority of RNs were educated in hospital-based diploma programs. As with all educational endeavors, some sort of ceremony was needed to mark the completion of the program, and so the Pinning ceremony was created. All fine and good for what was essentially a trade school program.

Thing is, nowadays, the vast majority of nurses are now trained in academic settings - earning ADNs, BSNs, or in rare cases some form of Masters as an entry degree - with a very tiny minority still being trained by hospitals. (In fact, in my state, there's only one hospital diploma program left.) Academic degrees come with academic graduations, with mortarboards, gowns, and the requisite tiresome playing of Pomp and Circumstance (unless you're lucky enough to go to Yale, for whom the song was written and, to the best of my knowledge, subsequently banned from commencement ceremonies for being so banal).

As was hammered into my head time and time again in Nursing Fundamentals, Nursing has for decades been promoting a self-image as a Profession™, and attempting to drag the rest of the world to view it as such. My understanding is that part of being a profession involves recognizing common ceremonies such as academic graduations. Yet, at many schools a pinning ceremony persists alongside or in addition to academic graduation.

My question is, why? Please note, "tradition" is not a sufficient answer: all traditions need to be viewed in light of their history and the functions they currently provide. As I think I've outlined above, both are found wanting where pinning ceremonies are concerned.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Please note, "tradition" is not a sufficient answer: all traditions need to be viewed in light of their history and the functions they currently provide.

Are you saying that because the academic graduation serves the purpose of celebrating a degree, the pinning ceremony is redundant and unnecessary?

You don't seem to understand that you can get an academic degree without ever donning that stupid-looking mortarboard. (I had my first bachelor's degree sent to me.) If we are going to eliminate "tradition" as a legitimate answer, why do you find pinning unprofessional, but a muumuu and a funny-looking flat hat professional.

If anything, you're suggesting that a tradition completely unrelated to nursing be used instead of and NOT alongside of one that has profound meaning to our specific profession. Why?

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

Are you saying that because the academic graduation serves the purpose of celebrating a degree, the pinning ceremony is redundant and unnecessary?

You don't seem to understand that you can get an academic degree without ever donning that stupid-looking mortarboard. (I had my first bachelor's degree sent to me.) If we are going to eliminate "tradition" as a legitimate answer, why do you find pinning unprofessional, but a muumuu and a funny-looking flat hat professional.

If anything, you're suggesting that a tradition completely unrelated to nursing be used instead of and NOT alongside of one that has profound meaning to our specific profession. Why?

I have a non-nursing bachelors; I know full well that walking in a funny costume is not necessary to receive one's degree, just as attending one's pinning is not necessary to be an RN (though apparently people get their undergarments in a twist if you decide to skip). In fact, I skipped commencement because the speaker was just some guy who'd given the school enough money to have a building named after himself and I only went to my departmental ceremony.

My point is that academic nursing makes a big deal about distancing itself from the hospital school period in US nursing history, since intentionally abandoning that model was an integral part of becoming a profession. Why, then, hang on to to a blatant vestige of that time when nursing was not a profession but instead a pink-collar trade?

[DoGoodThenGo]

Whoa, hold on there little firecracker.

Nursing school pins represent the tradition and history of the school from where it was awarded, and though called a "pin" are really a badge. They are descended from the Maltese Cross, and came from a time when badges were issued by religious orders and or royalty to identify (in the case of those providing nursing and or medical services), that one was educated,trained and experienced in the profession, as opposed to someone simply setting up shop as a "nurse".

Nursing pins function the same as medals in the military and other services. It points out that one has achieved a certain level of education, and or has obtained the right to be known as a member of a profession or other exclusive group. They act as a visible signal to lay persons that one has reached a certain level and or shown to possess traits. Same as with school rings, Greek rings, military stripes or medals and so forth.

As for nursing being a "profession", Florence Nightingale elevated nursing to that, the recent fight has been to make nursing an autonomous one.

Hospital trained nurses, especially those from such famed schools as Saint Vincent's, Flower and Fifth, Bellevue, and scores of others across the United States produced nurses that could run circles around college grad nurses then and now. The pin, and cap for that matter had nor has nothing to do with being a throwback or other such nonsense. Rather they were as one stated above, a badge one earned the right to upon graduation from the program to hold and use. Trust me, much as many today moan about their nursing education, when those hospital schools got finished with you, one had *EARNED* that pin and cap. One does not carry around nor wear a program's diploma, or degree award, however a pin (and cap) are visible signals to patients, staff, doctors and anyone else where one was trained/educated. From this they logically would expect one would uphold the reputation and traditions from said nursing program. It is also why many get VERY testy about non-nurses or nurses who didn't graduate from a certain nursing program (college, or diploma), wearing that school's pin or cap. Such persons didn't earn the rights however are broadcasting to the world they are associated with an organization.

Though without capping the pinning ceremony perhaps holds less meaning for some, but that pin represents one's school, and is a badge that said program puts their stamp on you, so to speak. You may not see them wearing a cap, but a nurse wearing say a "Hunter-Bellevue" pin conjures up all sorts of images and thoughts, relating to the history of that program.

Finally as for moving nursing out of hospitals, the diploma programs. This was not done because they produced poor nurse, on the contrary as stated above. Rather several factors came into play.

First, hospitals began to see, after years of thinking only their own programs could produce ready made nurses that suited their particular needs, that college educated nurses did quite well with a bit of added seasoning (orientation). Nursing programs are and were very expensive to run, especially after labour laws changed and students were no longer "unpaid" labour.

Finally nursing began moving from merely a practical profession with nurses trained via the apprenticeship method, to one requiring or rather incorporating various other faucets of education that merely aren't possible in a hospital school. Just for the record, going back years, hospital programs often sent their students to local colleges or medical schools for part of their training, mainly to take subjects such as chemistry, micro or bact, and perhaps A&P (if there wasn't anyone to teach it in house), but again by and large running a hospital program is expensive and there was no way anyone was going to add say an English department.

It is well to point out that at colleges or universities, it is the core and related courses everyone goes on about, and couldn't be offered by hospital programs.

As for getting knickers in a twist, yes some probably are and for some very good reasons. Many "old school" nurses, and not those senior in years, but those dedicated to a certain ways of the profession bemoan what they see happening. Nursing is becoming a "job" and less about tradition and dedication. Sure it is fine and well to be a "Profession" (capital "p" added), but at what cost if the bonds that held the thing together are lost?

It is those bonds that have caused nurse to go where their personal safety and even lives could be in jeopardy. It also caused them to stay at their patient's bedside regardless of threats of personal violence (often of the most criminal and intimate nature), or death. Quite honestly the profession has never paid well, nor had the best working conditions, but if you wanted to nurse, you put up with the current situation on the ground.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

My point is that academic nursing makes a big deal about distancing itself from the hospital school period in US nursing history, since intentionally abandoning that model was an integral part of becoming a profession. Why, then, hang on to to a blatant vestige of that time when nursing was not a profession but instead a pink-collar trade?

Do you really feel as if the pinning tradition is actively harming the profession? I don't know about you, but until I entered nursing school, I didn't know what pinning was! That said, I'm not sure lay people or medical people would necessarily feel that a pinning ceremony was a significant cause of the lack of regard to nursing as a profession. That attitude has been around a long, long time, and just getting rid of pinning ceremonies isn't going to fix it--I don't think getting rid of the ceremonies will have an effect at all because the ceremony isn't the source of the problem in the first place.

[elkpark]

Academic degrees come with academic graduations, with mortarboards, gowns, and the requisite tiresome playing of Pomp and Circumstance (unless you're lucky enough to go to Yale, for whom the song was written and, to the best of my knowledge, subsequently banned from commencement ceremonies for being so banal).

(Where did you get that story from? What we usuall call "Pomp and Circumstance" in the US is one section of one of a set of six "Pomp and Circumstance" marches written by Sir Edward Elgar around 1900 -- none of them were written "for" Yale; they were familiar in England and around the world well before anyone ever thought of using any of them at a US commencement ceremony. When I Googled this question (because I knew the piece wasn't written "for" Yale), I found that Yale did first perform the march at a commencement ceremony in 1905, in honor of Edward Elgar being present to receive an honory degree, but not as a processional march -- it was one of several pieces of Elgar music played at the ceremony, because Elgar was the "big name" guest of honor. Once Yale used it in a ceremony, other schools jumped on the bandwagon (because it's v. common for other schools to emulate the Ivies), and it has "trickled down" from there. AFAIK, it hasn't been "banned" at Yale -- they just don't use it; lots of schools don't use it for commencement ceremonies, just as lots of people don't use the "traditional" wedding marches for their weddings. There's lots of appropriate music out there. I, personally, like the Brahms "Academic Festival Overture" for commencements, but there's a world of good choices available for the occasion. Although I have a lot of happy memories of my Yale commencement, I don't recall what music was played.)

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

Whoa, hold on there little firecracker.

Nursing school pins represent the tradition and history of the school from where it was awarded, and though called a "pin" are really a badge. They are descended from the Maltese Cross, and came from a time when badges were issued by religious orders and or royalty to identify (in the case of those providing nursing and or medical services), that one was educated,trained and experienced in the profession, as opposed to someone simply setting up shop as a "nurse".

Nursing pins function the same as medals in the military and other services. It points out that one has achieved a certain level of education, and or has obtained the right to be known as a member of a profession or other exclusive group. They act as a visible signal to lay persons that one has reached a certain level and or shown to possess traits. Same as with school rings, Greek rings, military stripes or medals and so forth.

As for nursing being a "profession", Florence Nightingale elevated nursing to that, the recent fight has been to make nursing an autonomous one.

That Maltese cross you mentioned earlier comes to us from the Knights Hospitaller, who originally got their start tending people who had become ill or injured on pilgrimage to Jerusalem (i.e. nursing). What Florence Nightingale did was give Nursing its current name and start all the unfortunate gender associations that still afflicts nursing to the present day. However, I wanted to discuss something a bit more recent than the detrimental effects of the efforts of first-wave feminism on men in nursing. My understanding is that after the first few Nightingale-based schools opened up in the US, many/most Hospitals opened schools that were bigger on the cheap labor than on the education aspect of having a school, as you partially acknowledge later on.

Hospital trained nurses, especially those from such famed schools as Saint Vincent's, Flower and Fifth, Bellevue, and scores of others across the United States produced nurses that could run circles around college grad nurses then and now. The pin, and cap for that matter had nor has nothing to do with being a throwback or other such nonsense. Rather they were as one stated above, a badge one earned the right to upon graduation from the program to hold and use. Trust me, much as many today moan about their nursing education, when those hospital schools got finished with you, one had *EARNED* that pin and cap. One does not carry around nor wear a program's diploma, or degree award, however a pin (and cap) are visible signals to patients, staff, doctors and anyone else where one was trained/educated. From this they logically would expect one would uphold the reputation and traditions from said nursing program.

I think I can best make my point by incorporating the other response on this thread that landed at the same time:

Do you really feel as if the pinning tradition is actively harming the profession? I don't know about you, but until I entered nursing school, I didn't know what pinning was!

While it may have at one time, the distinct cap/pin doesn't mean anything to the general public nowadays - by and large they don't know what it is, and if they do, they don't know what each school's looks like, so the cap and pin is obviously not for their benefit. I'm also willing to go out on a limb and say that hardly anyone today could tell what school someone came from by looking at the pin alone, since there's so many programs out there.

It is also why many get VERY testy about non-nurses or nurses who didn't graduate from a certain nursing program (college, or diploma), wearing that school's pin or cap. Such persons didn't earn the rights however are broadcasting to the world they are associated with an organization.

This is the first I've heard of this issue, and I'm not sure how it's germane.

Though without capping the pinning ceremony perhaps holds less meaning for some, but that pin represents one's school, and is a badge that said program puts their stamp on you, so to speak. You may not see them wearing a cap, but a nurse wearing say a "Hunter-Bellevue" pin conjures up all sorts of images and thoughts, relating to the history of that program.

Finally as for moving nursing out of hospitals, the diploma programs. This was not done because they produced poor nurse, on the contrary as stated above. Rather several factors came into play.

I'm not saying they produced poor nurses, I'm saying that the method of training reflected that of a trade than a profession.

First, hospitals began to see, after years of thinking only their own programs could produce ready made nurses that suited their particular needs, that college educated nurses did quite well with a bit of added seasoning (orientation). Nursing programs are and were very expensive to run, especially after labour laws changed and students were no longer "unpaid" labour.

Finally nursing began moving from merely a practical profession with nurses trained via the apprenticeship method, to one requiring or rather incorporating various other faucets of education that merely aren't possible in a hospital school. Just for the record, going back years, hospital programs often sent their students to local colleges or medical schools for part of their training, mainly to take subjects such as chemistry, micro or bact, and perhaps A&P (if there wasn't anyone to teach it in house), but again by and large running a hospital program is expensive and there was no way anyone was going to add say an English department.

Not to mention the increase in complexity of care requiring full-fledged nurses in hospitals rather than a few RNs and a bevy of students - why pay students (who you don't need anymore) for schooling when they can pay for that themselves and then come work for you when they're trained?

It is well to point out that at colleges or universities, it is the core and related courses everyone goes on about, and couldn't be offered by hospital programs.

As for getting knickers in a twist, yes some probably are and for some very good reasons. Many "old school" nurses, and not those senior in years, but those dedicated to a certain ways of the profession bemoan what they see happening. Nursing is becoming a "job" and less about tradition and dedication. Sure it is fine and well to be a "Profession" (capital "p" added), but at what cost if the bonds that held the thing together are lost?

It is those bonds that have caused nurse to go where their personal safety and even lives could be in jeopardy. It also caused them to stay at their patient's bedside regardless of threats of personal violence (often of the most criminal and intimate nature), or death. Quite honestly the profession has never paid well, nor had the best working conditions, but if you wanted to nurse, you put up with the current situation on the ground.

My guess is that the increased corporatism of US healthcare has something to do with the "just a job" attitude, where nurses are "just an employee" and, worse, billed as a hotel expense; however you're probably in a better position to judge.

But getting back to the original discussion - I admit that you've filled out the history of pin itself a lot fuller than I was aware of. That said, it's still a token of a hospital diploma graduation ceremony, each of which have no modern purpose for anyone not attending a hospital program. So, why keep doing pinning ceremonies?

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

Do you really feel as if the pinning tradition is actively harming the profession? I don't know about you, but until I entered nursing school, I didn't know what pinning was! That said, I'm not sure lay people or medical people would necessarily feel that a pinning ceremony was a significant cause of the lack of regard to nursing as a profession. That attitude has been around a long, long time, and just getting rid of pinning ceremonies isn't going to fix it--I don't think getting rid of the ceremonies will have an effect at all because the ceremony isn't the source of the problem in the first place.

I'm not saying it's related to the lack of respect that nurses get - what I am saying is that keeping a ceremony made for a pink-collar trade is inconsistent with constant protestations that nursing is a profession.

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

(Where did you get that story from? What we usuall call "Pomp and Circumstance" in the US is one section of one of a set of six "Pomp and Circumstance" marches written by Sir Edward Elgar around 1900 -- none of them were written "for" Yale; they were familiar in England and around the world well before anyone ever thought of using any of them at a US commencement ceremony. When I Googled this question (because I knew the piece wasn't written "for" Yale), I found that Yale did first perform the march at a commencement ceremony in 1905, in honor of Edward Elgar being present to receive an honory degree, but not as a processional march -- it was one of several pieces of Elgar music played at the ceremony, because Elgar was the "big name" guest of honor. Once Yale used it in a ceremony, other schools jumped on the bandwagon (because it's v. common for other schools to emulate the Ivies), and it has "trickled down" from there. AFAIK, it hasn't been "banned" at Yale -- they just don't use it; lots of schools don't use it for commencement ceremonies, just as lots of people don't use the "traditional" wedding marches for their weddings. There's lots of appropriate music out there. I, personally, like the Brahms "Academic Overture" for commencements, but there's a world of good choices available for the occasion. Although I have a lot of happy memories of my Yale commencement, I don't recall what music was played.)

I could've sworn I'd read it on Wikipedia but it's not there, and it's not coming up on any of the google searches I've run either. Hmmm.

[chickapea]

I don't know why pinning... but I definitely am looking more forward to being pinned than getting a diploma!!:redpinkhe

[ShannonRN2010, BSN, RN]

I am not all wordy and crap....I am just gonna say that one of my proudest moments was getting pinned as a LPN and I am soooo looking forward to being pinned in 19 hours from RN school.

Who cares...for us in nursing, it's a special moment for us to celebrate with our families and friends who have seen us work our butts off to get through school and a moment for us all to shine as fresh faced GN's going out into the working world with our shiney university pins. :)

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

In short, the pinning ceremony is a way of welcoming new-grad nurses into the nursing profession. Each nursing school has their own special "pin" and each one has a meaning behind it. I attended my pinning ceremony last night and it was beautiful and I am d*** proud of it! It is a big achievement.