Have you ever been insulted for what you do?

[Mrs. SnowStormRN]

Hello. Another post actually influenced me to start this thread. The OP was a psych nurse like myself and she actually posted something that was recently said to me. I was having a conversation with a nurse friend of mine (CCU nurse, I really admire her, she's a brillant nurse) we we're having "medical talk." In the midst of convo she says, "You actually do know real nurse stuff (laughs)." I just laughed and said, "I am a REAL NURSE, duuuuh." It's not the first time I've encountered this insinuation that us "psych nurses" aren't as smart as other nurses. Another "psych nurse" comment I hear often is, "Wow, you work in psych? You know eventually psych nurses end up crazy like their patients.":eek: I could go on and on about this. I feel each speciality requires a special person to do the job well, and you must have knowledge in different areas to perform most specialities, not just in your specific area. When I worked in MedSurg I encountered psych patients, so I needed some knowledge on mental illness. Now that I work in mental health, many of my clients have a range of other diseases that are not mental in origin, but physical, so I must be prepared to care for these things as well. I think people assume psych is really easy, but I know that many people couldn't handle this career (especially because my clients are off their medications because I work in research, so you can imagine some of the issues we deal with. The police know the nurses by name, due to high flight risks, attacks on themselves or others. We literally have to be trained in self defense.) Anyhow, I'm going towards left field here, LoL! Any others heard some insulting remarks, or misconcepcions about their particular speciality?

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

As a long-term care nurse who's sent many a crumping resident to the ER, I've often seen the eye-rolling from the EMTs and heard the thinly-veiled contempt in the voice of the ER nurse I'm calling report to that means: I am only putting up with you, because you're just a stupid LTC nurse and *everyone* knows LTC nurses only work LTC because they can't make it anywhere else.

Sound familiar? Every LTC nurse knows "the look" and "the tone", and we hate it. I won't belabor the point that we are every bit as knowledgeable and competent as any other specialty, because we know it and take pride in what we do. It's just that being dismissed as losers for working with the elderly---who are admittedly not a glamorous demographic---gets really, really tiresome from time to time. KWIM?

[germanshep]

A patient looked at my engagement ring and asked which doctor I was marrying and when my last day working would be. Apparently people still think the only reason to become a nurse is to find a rich doctor. Yeah right.

[bsveillon]

Always consider the source of such passive aggressive comments. Usually the same people that pick on psych nurses as being less intelligent are the ones that tell a depressed patient to "Just get over it." or tell their patient that's in for an attempted suicide "Next time use a 9mm instead of a bottle pills." (true story).

Many people have petty prejudices that are based off of ignorance and nothing more.

Yeah, I saw a DON tell that to a patient one time in the ER, he told him, "Please, next time, finish the job so we won't be forced to take you any more."

I told him he was a sorry excuse for a nurse and shouldn't come on the floor.

I know it gets "frustrating" sometimes- but get over it- the rest of us do. If you can't "get over" your frustration of needy patients, find another job.

[buddiage]

I am quite shocked at the STUPIDITY of what people say. We ALL have our specialties. THANK GOD. There's enough work for everyone, so let's not step on eachother.

[Hygiene Queen]

I had told a friend, a nurse, that I wanted to be a nurse in psych.

He laughed,

"Why?? That's were old nurses go to die!!"

And the first time I met my former mother-in-law.

She was aghast that I was an aide in LTC.

She asked,

"Oooh... you don't want to do that the rest of your life, do you?"

What a pompous, snotty woman she was!

[eriksoln, BSN, RN]

I'd like to offer a different perspective/viewpoint.

First: Yes, I agree, we all fit under the title "Nurse". LPNs, GNs, RNs, BSNs, MSNs.........critical care, LTC, M/S, Psych., OB, School...........w/e specialty you happen to find yourself in. All are "Nurses".

My issue is, nursing is so much more specialized than it used to be. That ideal "nurse" that schools and industries tried to create, the one who can float from one unit to the other without missing a beat, is gone. They don't exist anymore. It used to be there were only a few lines that nurses wouldn't cross (this info. coming from talking to people, I've only been around 5 years) such as PEDs nurses stayed with PEDs patients, nurses from M/S or other adult units didn't float to PEDs........ect.

Now, the medical field as a whole and hence nursing along with it, is so much more specialized. Ever thought you'd hear the day when ICU nurses admit they won't accept going to a M/S unit because it is so different it is unsafe for them? I can imagine the Psych nurse being told to go do a shift in the ED would say the same. Same goes for me, the M/S nurse, if they told me to go to the PICU.

I once interviewed with a hospital about mid-way through my Travel Nurse career because I wanted to go into the ICU or the OR. A hospital I liked near the area I happened to be in at the time needed both. I did a number of phone interviews with the HR person. We had some discussion about which I preferred, and my answer was the ICU. Problem: I was only 2 wks into my 13 week assignment, so I was going to be a good while before I started. Of course, Murphy's law, the ICU positions filled first, leaving the OR position open.

This is what the HR person said to me: "I'm willing to hire you for the OR, I think you'd be a fine hire for our facility. But, I must implore you to be honest with me about whether or not you really want to do it. OR nursing takes a good bit of training time for us, so it's expensive from out standpoint. Since it was your second choice, I don't want to make you feel like I'm trying to talk you into doing it. I want you to consider too, once you are an OR nurse for a few years, you really can't go back to working the floors. It's much too different. Some have done it, but its very difficult."

Even they get it. Once and OR nurse, always an OR nurse was the phrase a few people afterwards said to me. I got the feeling that OR "Nursing" was so different from nursing, why not rename the job, stop calling it "nursing"?

I said that to one friend, and they rebuked "I guess the OR nurses would see it differently and say........let OR Nurses keep the title of nurse, let everyone else change their name." Good point.

So, my question is...................which specialty is "Real Nursing"? Which unit in a hospital or outside of the hospital practices the most "Real Nursing Stuff"? If we were to put our foot down and demand only "Real Nurses" use the title "Nurse" at all, what would the criteria be?

I don't have an answer. I think I know what people mean when they say "Real Nursing", but I bet if I told them to describe it we'd disagree on more than a few points.

For me, believe it or not, I think the "Politicians" have it all figured out. See, we all come from the same background, and then extend out in different directions as our career advances. Like nursing, politics offer a great many places you can land, many dividing lines (Democrat, Republican, Senator, President, VP, Mayor, Governor so on so forth). You never hear the President beat his chest and tell a Governor or Mayor..........."Eh, thats not real politics" though. Maybe the answer is not to attach so much pride and importance to the "Nurse" title, at least not to the point where we are telling other nurses they aren't "real".

[Orange Tree]

I've been asked, "Are you an LPN or just an RN?" ...and of course encouraged to go back to school and become an LPN someday.

[Essiesmom]

Oh brother. I trained at the last diploma program in the US, so just know I'm older than dirt. Insulted? THAT started in nursing school. Around the corner from our hospital (we're talking the 70's here) there was a Media palace that showed nothing but "nurse" movies 24/7. Always fun to come off clinical and have to dodge the clientele from the "theatre". Early on in my career, I remember a very wise nurse telling me "nurses eat their young". She was right. And the biggest problem as I saw it, was that we never stood up for each other as a whole. How about the male nurses? Back in my day, those poor guys - the grief they had to put up with. Do they still? I left bedside nursing the day I was told I couldn't have more help, so I could sit with a dying AIDS patient. I left bedside nursing because I realized paper was becoming more important than patients, because some little Ally McBeal administrator with a bigger salary, and NO clue about what I did, was making decisions that affected MY patients. Because more bureacracy was getting in the way of the patients, and because people still saw us as "just" a nurse. You folks have come a very long way. Somedays, you just have to remember - opinions are like derrieres - everybody has one!

[eriksoln, BSN, RN]

Oh brother. I trained at the last diploma program in the US, so just know I'm older than dirt. Insulted? THAT started in nursing school. Around the corner from our hospital (we're talking the 70's here) there was a Media palace that showed nothing but "nurse" movies 24/7. Always fun to come off clinical and have to dodge the clientele from the "theatre". Early on in my career, I remember a very wise nurse telling me "nurses eat their young". She was right. And the biggest problem as I saw it, was that we never stood up for each other as a whole. How about the male nurses? Back in my day, those poor guys - the grief they had to put up with. Do they still? I left bedside nursing the day I was told I couldn't have more help, so I could sit with a dying AIDS patient. I left bedside nursing because I realized paper was becoming more important than patients, because some little Ally McBeal administrator with a bigger salary, and NO clue about what I did, was making decisions that affected MY patients. Because more bureacracy was getting in the way of the patients, and because people still saw us as "just" a nurse. You folks have come a very long way. Somedays, you just have to remember - opinions are like derrieres - everybody has one!

What's a derrierer?

I'm not sure I have one.

<_>

>_>

Is it like a diary? I never did that.

[Essiesmom]

French for your backside derriere - ze buttocks, ze bum - get ze picture?!:)

[cjcsoon2bnp, MSN, RN, NP]

Its the same old p*ssing match that you see between different nursing specialties, nursing education/experience levels and even different types of nurses (LPN/LVN, RN, APN etc.) Can't we just accept the fact that nurses come from all different kinds of people with all different kinds of skills, strengths and levels of education and we should embrace that instead of play the game of who is the better nurse. I would also note that if you are bound to become a babbling, lunatic because your a psych. nurse then maternity nurses should expect to be constantly hormonal and pregnant and peds. nurses are doomed to a life of baby talk and poopy diapers.

!Chris

[PrisonPsychRN]

I often get insulted because I work in a prison. "That's where nurses who don't know much English work." and I happen to work psych at the prison "Isn't that just a paper pushing job?" from my sister who works as a RN in Orhtopedics at a hospital... Until she called me one night in reference to a psych patient that she had.

I love my job and occasionally have a burnt out feeling. But in all honesty couldn't imagine doing anything else!

If I do happen to go crazy as my patients are...well I hope I have a great nurse to care for me!