Murses

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  1. What is your reaction toward the term "Murses" for male-nurses?

    • 30
      I am male and I find it offensive or irritating
    • 102
      I am female and I find it offensive or irritating
    • 13
      I am male and I find it funny
    • 26
      I am female and I find it funny
    • 3
      I am male and I have no opinion
    • 5
      I am female and I have no opinion
    • 7
      I am male and I am ok with it as long as the intent is good
    • 12
      I am female and I am ok with it as long as the intent is good
    • 7
      I am male and my reaction is not listed in the options
    • 15
      I am female and my reaction is not listed in the options

220 members have participated

What is your reaction toward the term "Murses" for male-nurses?

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but as far as explaining to people the whole "male nurse" thing, people can think whatever they like. Well educated folks accept that straight males become nurses. The rest will never be able to wrap their pea-brains around the fact that nursing is a career, not an indicator of sexual orientation. Besides, the latter will always snicker out "nurse" whenever they hear the term "professional health tech" anyways (ummm...that was one of your other terms, wasn't it???).

I'm not offended by the term "murse", it just sounds a bit silly 'tis all.

Have a great week!!

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and then went " You are a nurse? A man nurse?" You try to keep your sense of humor and not be offended went "No madam, I am a murse."

I dunno, I just picture this elderly lady saying "Huh?? What's that?? You're a 'moose'? ".

Maybe it's just me.

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I dunno, I just picture this elderly lady saying "Huh?? What's that?? You're a 'moose' ".

Maybe it's just me.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

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Specializes in ICU.

I keep thinking of the poor bloke with a cold

"Hey Murse! Cud you helb me I have a cold im my nobe"

:imbar Sorry bad sense of humour attack :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

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I'm not trying to be argumentative, but as far as explaining to people the whole "male nurse" thing, people can think whatever they like. Well educated folks accept that straight males become nurses. The rest will never be able to wrap their pea-brains around the fact that nursing is a career, not an indicator of sexual orientation. Besides, the latter will always snicker out "nurse" whenever they hear the term "professional health tech" anyways (ummm...that was one of your other terms, wasn't it???).

I'm not offended by the term "murse", it just sounds a bit silly 'tis all.

Have a great week!!

Well, as I mentioned, I find it humorous, but that just might be my warp sense of humor.

About the sexual orientation thing, I actually was not thinking about that (hmmm... that could be another poll...). In my case, when I explain to my friends I am going into the nursing field, as far as I know, they did not think I was gay since they know I am straight. But lots of them sure was confused and surprised. Most of them don't know there are nurses with Ph.Ds. Actually they don't even know there are nurses with any kind of a graduate degree in the first place.

"Professional Health Tech" is not one of my term, I could not think of a good alternative term, but I am fooling around with it. The problem with Professional Health Tech" is the term "Tech" as it will not cover say NP and CNS at all. It does not cover all the people who has graduate degree say in something like Nursing Informatic or Nursing Attornies.

-Dan

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Hi Dan,

I'd really like to hear some of your other gender neutral terms for "nurse". I suppose I could be persuaded to side with a name change for a more suitable term. The theory is that the term "nurse" comes from the word "nurture" (I know you know that already). Since the nature of our profession encompasses far more than "nurturing", there may be a better term out there. What else have you got?

Also, I'm still not sure of your rationale for suggesting a name change. Could you explain it a bit more?

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I think it is demeaning. Why make the distinction at all? You don't call female Air Force members "AIRWOMEN".....or army soldier, "soldierettes"!!!!!!

I just see this as another way to keep us divisive when we need to unite as nurses.

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Hi Dan,

I'd really like to hear some of your other gender neutral terms for "nurse". I suppose I could be persuaded to side with a name change for a more suitable term. The theory is that the term "nurse" comes from the word "nurture" (I know you know that already). Since the nature of our profession encompasses far more than "nurturing", there may be a better term out there. What else have you got?

That is a hard one. I can't come up with anything that even half way respectable. But it does forces me to think about what is the core of nursing? I know this topic has been debated also.

The best I came up with are "Professional Care Giver", "Care Provider", and "Care Taker". Let's see how bad it sound if we replace "nurse" with "Care Provider" in a few situations as an exercise:

  • RN becomes RCP (Register Care Provider)
  • LVN becomes LVCP (License Vocational Care Provider)
  • Patient asks "Where is my CP?"
  • NP becomes NCP (Nurse Care Provider)
  • CNS becomes CCPS (Clinical Care Provider Specialist)
  • Nursing Informatics becomes Care Provider Infomatics
  • Nursing Attornies becomes Care Provider Attornies
  • Flight Nursing becomes Flight Care Provider or Flight CP

Sound strange, huh? Try the other suggestions I mentioned, and it sounded even worst.

This does forces me to think about other things, like what criteria should a new term meets? I can think of a few on top of my head right now:

  • Has to be gender neutral (so murse would not work)
  • Express the concept of caring/nuturing
  • Not a "mouthful" ("Nurse" is nice and short)
  • Sound intuitivly ok (e.g. "fireperson" just sound awful but "firefighter" sound fine and it has a more accurate description of the profession)
  • Express other concepts that are common in ALL nursing areas.
  • Have no negative "baggage" or connotations associate with it.
Also, I'm still not sure of your rationale for suggesting a name change. Could you explain it a bit more?
Hmmmm... I just put the the two polls up and didn't have too much explanation. Interesting to see the reactions and votes so far. The intent of the "murse" poll and the other "name change" poll are quite different.

The "murse" poll, I just found the term murse really funny (I have to find where I saw it again; I saw it once and it just stick in my mind). But I also realize people might be offended by it. So I got curious and put up the murse poll. As you can see from the poll, I am curious if there is a difference between male and female nurses in terms of the reaction. I can see myself using it in a joking way with an older patient who is surprise to see me (being male) instead getting all offended. I can even see my fellow nurses use it on me in a gentle affectionate way. But I can't see it use seriously (like instead of an RN, I am going to get a RM:)).

The "name change" poll is something else. That has to do with my linguistics training long long long time ago in school. One thing we did was looking at the "semantic shift" of words which I found interesting. With "semantic shifts", these things just happen slowly, one can't really legislate it (as in somebody go "ok, we now have to use this term instead of the other term). A side interests I have is to watch how the different aspect of the word "nurse" changes over time. One aspect is the gender implication of the word. As more men are going into nursing, would the word slowly looses its gender specific implication and slowly aquire a more gender neutral connotation (from the general public point of view)?

Another thing has to do with my involvement with serious mental illness (I have a few friends who have schizophrenia or bipolar and I am involve in NAMI) and labeling does matter because of the stigma that is assoicated with it, especially with schizophrenia (like all people with sz are violent killers). Seeing my friends having schizophrenia is bad enough, but having a a label that carries all these extra negative stigmatized connotation just make the situation worst. So I am interested in the topic of what is the purpose of a label (we do need them)? What makes a good label (e.g. it is accurate with no extra negative connotation)? What makes a bad label (e.g. it carries extra negative connotation which is not accurate)?

Because of my side interests above, the "name change" is interesting to me. There is a third reason for it, it helps me to really think about what is nursing? I mean, we have LVN/LPN to NP/CNS and these are all nurses. What is the characteristics that ties them all together? Or are there any? I know this question has also been and is being debated. In UK, they just had an official definition of what is a nurse. A good way to think of question like this is to get rid of the label "nurse" and try to come up with another one as an exercise. It really forces one to think. You can use the same technique if you have, say, a question "what is engineering since you have anyway from civil engineering to electrical engineering?" So you just get rid of the label "engineering" and try to come up with something else as an exercise.

Don't know, does that make more sense to you or confuses you more?

-Dan

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I keep thinking of the poor bloke with a cold

"Hey Murse! Cud you helb me I have a cold im my nobe"

:imbar Sorry bad sense of humour attack :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

You know, maybe we should start a new thread in the Break Room or somewhere on "Murse Humor".:)

-Dan

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Just thought of something... I know I get into trouble when I start thinking...

Someone mentioned already that if we do have a name change, it will cost megabucks just to change all the documentation.

I was thinking... If there is a name change, going into the "business card" business can be very good.... Maybe that will be another speciality in nursing call "Business Card Nursing" :) or "Business Card "

-Dan

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It doesn't make me mad --

I don't see it as something funny wither

I just think it's kind of stupid. Who cares gender -- as long as you are good at what you do?

Would we have to change the names of other occupations to reflect the gender of the employees! Didn't airlines go to "flight attendants" to avoid this same thing?

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It doesn't make me mad --

Would we have to change the names of other occupations to reflect the gender of the employees! Didn't airlines go to "flight attendants" to avoid this same thing?

Hmmm... you actually brought up an interesting point not related to this poll. It relates to the other poll on "name change".

The interesting point is that the airline industry did make a name change. But what if it did not and just stick with "stewardess" and insist that men be either call "male stewardess" or just "stewardess". There is a parallel with nursing here in some degree. Sorry, this should be over at the other poll. Guess I better go over to the other poll and put a similar thought.

-Dan

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