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I'm talking about doctors or maybe even friends or family. My uncle once said with a disgusted look on his face e don't do nursing they have to give bath and stuff. My friend's boyfriend once said the work is demeaning since all they do is wipe butts. Hearing these stories are really sad. They are misinformed and very cruel. All of us will one day be in a situation where we might need help in that type of way.
I went to a prestigious all-girls high school that hardcore promoted the hard sciences and male-dominated fields. Not once did I hear them promote nursing (it was med school, etc). I have a feeling at my tenth year high school reunion, some of the faculty and classmates will turn their noses up at me for pursuing a female-dominated field.
My dad told me when I was in high school he "couldn't see me wasting my life as a nurse." I ended up studying another field and went to nursing school in my mid-twenties. When I got my masters, he couldn't understand why I felt the need to do that, either. A few months ago he told me he was proud and he was wrong. He didn't understand what nursing really is and what nurses do.
I will admit, before I went into nursing, I was ignorant of what nurses actually did. I respected them because my family always thought well of those who were in the field, but I had no idea what it was all about. I wanted to be a veterinarian from the time I was old enough to voice it. When my grandfather was in the hospital with his first stroke, it was the first time I got to see what a nurse actually does. It was the nurses I always saw when I visited - rarely, if ever, the physician. My grandfather was kept clean, fed, and treated with respect when he was in a position that probably made him feel like he had lost all respect. Nothing "degrading" in that. I wanted to do what they did and went into the field of nursing myself.
Most of what I hear is positive. I rarely hear any degrading comments about nursing. Because I live in the 'Bible Belt' in the south, when I have the chance to answer my answer is generally "Jesus washed the feet of a prostitute. They walked everywhere in sandals and it was considered one of the most 'degrading' things you could do in that time in society to wash another person's feet. God set the example and you're looking down on me for caring for others?" Usually gives them something to think about or shuts them up.
I think a lot of it stems from the fact most people never see the phone calls we make about condition changes, the physician order errors we may catch, the things we recommend that actually help, or understand the science behind a simple nursing intervention. A lot of our work is behind the scenes.
I get incredulous looks all the time, by other nurses, when they find out I was a lawyer before I went to nursing school. "What in the world would you want to do THIS for?" Well, YOU do it, don't you? I usually just give them a smart aleck comment about wanting to be closer to the ambulances.
I don't really care a whole lot what many people think of me. If they think it's weird they don't have to hang out with me. I don't have time for people who demean someone else's job. We all have to work.
as a cna, soon to be RN my family has been nothing but supportive and admirable of my choices to pertain a higher education, most of my family are college drop out miners, walmart workers, or drug dealers, so coming from my back round I am highly respected by my family's elders for becoming more than the other grandchildren and nieces that got pregnant at 16 and deal drugs, I feel as though being a nurse is such a highly respected career, and I hope to educate myself up to the highest level of nursing available and have the experiences throughout my education, overall nursing is only for the strong willed and only for the people that want to help others in the process of furthering themselves
I have two Master's degrees and am a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. During my first career, I was able to do lots of amazing things with amazing people. I was able to brief the last NASA Space Shuttle crew on rescue procedures before they launched. I've gone back to school for my BSN because it is something I WANT to do, not because I need to for any reason. My goal is to work a few years, then be a traveling nurse with my wife and take lots of time off to see the world etc. when we feel like it. Doctors can belittle me all they want, I don't want their lifestyle. I know this is an honorable career, and I love working with people. I don't have to please anyone but my family.
My mother does not respect nurses at all. She has chronic health problems and is grossly non-compliant with everything, so she's a "frequent flier" at her local ED and urgent care. I stop listening when her stories start with "And then the stupid nurse said....."
She HATES nurse practioners! Will refuse to see them, demand "someone real", and ask for her bill to be reduced when a NP enters her room. I haven't told her that I'm applying to a DNP program, because I don't want to deal with the fall out.
My sister-in-law has in the past made comments about my being a nurse by saying that all I have to worry about is passing meds (which I don't really even do at all in my position). She has worked as a nursing assistant in the distant past at a nursing home, so this may have been her perception of a nurse from those days if that was all she noticed. I don't respond much to it besides I've told her nursing is a tad more involved than that....but it bugs me. I have another sister-in-law who is constantly bragging about what I do as she thinks I do more sophisticated things than I actually do. I figure I can't control what people think. I probably have misconceptions about other occupations, so I try not to worry too much about it.
I have only hear of positive things from both sides of the family; on one side, there is another nurse in the family-my cousin; otherwise we are from a family of artists, and business owners; and one of my aunts was a chemist (retired, as well as people who worked in healthcare, public service or corporate-high school and/or college graduates.
I come from a unconditionally supportive family.
You know what is really silly?
Back in my late teens and early twenties, I was a competitive athlete. People were googly eyed and ready to roll out the red carpet wherever I went.
When I passed the boards and could finally tell people I was an R.N., is when I suddenly found out that everyone's cousin thrice removed, sister, mother, brother, pet walker, babysitter, and cat was/is a "nurse."
Seriously. It's weird. And it gets old.
I have definitely got the whole "Why don't you become a doctor?" or "You're smart enough to be a doctor" speeches. I just tell them that I didn't become a doctor because I didn't want to become a doctor and that I'm also smart enough to be a nurse. I also find that these people who ask such questions have no idea what a nurse actually is/does. To them a nurse is anyone wearing scrubs. So really, I try not to take the criticisms of those who are so misinformed/ignorant to heart.
rnmi2004
534 Posts
I've never run across that in real life. People who make comments like that are obviously ignorant of what nurses really do. Try to educate them; if they're receptive -- great. If they want to wallow in their ignorance, not your problem.