I thought I would share with you my experiences as a straight, white, non-political, low 30's - male in nursing. To avoid doxxing myself, I'll just say that I'm in a top 10 student getting my NP. I want to be very clear, I'm not saying men shouldn't go into nursing, I am saying you should understand what you're getting yourself into. Also, these are just my experiences and you could have a totally different experience.
I have an undergraduate in computer science and completed an ABSN program because I thought I'd like to work with people. The actual nursing portion of my program was great; fundamentals, pharmacology, and pathophysiology are all important classes to master. Unfortunately these courses represented a minority of the coursework. The majority of the coursework was spent essentially preaching socialism to us under the veneer of "community health" and "ethics". Now I get it, I was a little order when I went into nursing and I have a different perspective. But every single community health or ethics class was about how evil capitalism is and how there should be a government program for everything. Full disclaimer, I voted for Hilary Clinton twice and politics isn't my thing. The bias was so overwhelming and they didn't even try to hide it. I realize that socialism / communism is fashionable with the younger crowd, but I wish I would have learned about actual community health or ethical issues in nursing.
Race Issues. Yet another disclaimer, race couldn't mean less to me. We had several lectures and guest seminars from prominent people in campus leadership tell us that it wasn't possible to racist against white people because white people have all the power. It was just ironic because that statement came from a dean at an IVY league school that is a person of color. We had a few students that were obsessed with race. We would be learning about cardiac issues and the medications that you use to treat the conditions. For those that don't know, African Americans typically don't respond well to Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARBs) and are typically placed on calcium channel blockers. This one girl in class went on about how it was systemic racism and prior experiences being a slave that causes African Americans to have poor cardiac health. The professor went along with it.
To summarize my ABSN experience, I learned that it was never the patients fault for their own poor outcome. The poor outcome was entirely due to being oppressed because of their race or sex; or there isn't a government program available for them to utilize. The lack of a government program to help afford a generic medication that costs less than $5/90 day supply is probably due to racism.
I'll post about my experience in NP school later, but as a male I'd be aware of the following before I signed up for nursing school.
If I could describe nursing school in one word it would be gynocentric; if you gave me two words, I'd say extreme SJWs.
If you are science minded, put in the extra work and go to medical school. Trust me, I have friends that did this and the majority of your time is spent learning actual medicine. I had a semester long "evidence based practice" class where we learned that grounding yourself can improve your mental health. Grounding, as in grounding yourself to an electrical outlet or going barefoot in the grass. I've taken several classes on electricity and magnetism in my undergrad. "Grounding" yourself will do absolutely nothing but we learned pseudo-science instead of medicine.
If you are a-political or heaven forbid lean conservative; learn to keep your ideas to yourself. I got much better grades on assignments when I learned how to write like the reincarnation of Karl Marx.
Group work can be a very social thing. Group work in computer science focused on results and objective goals, does your code compile? Did your robot fall over and die? Nursing group work is about how people feel about the work. It's less objective and more subjective.
Your program will be mostly run by women and very effeminate men. My program has a prom every year. In all fairness, my computer science department would order bunch of kegs once a month for the students.
I'm not saying don't go into nursing. Nursing is a great profession and it's very rewarding. If I had to do it over again, I would have taken the additional year and applied to medical school.
I'll share more about my experience in NP school so far at another time.
Why is it that people from other countries come here for healthcare when their life depends on it? If you need life saving medicine in a timely fashion, the US is the place to have it. Wait times at the VA are horrible, same with Canada, and Scandinavia.
This is true. My daughter married a Canadian and they had 2 of my grandchildren were born in Canada. They all eventually moved to the US.
This is true. My daughter married a Canadian and they had 2 of my grandchildren were born in Canada. They all eventually moved to the US.
Hi there,
Yes, two of my doctors (Orthopedic Surgeons) have been Canadian transplants and they told me the main issue in their system is the wait times for even the most basic of procedures (hernia repair, lumpectomies, gall bladder removals ,etc). Good quality of care, but the wait times super long and horrible so folks that have the resources jump across the border and cash pay. Also, the doctors came to work and live in the US because the pay they get here versus Canada is larger by several orders of magnitude. They had top notch credentials by any measure, top residencies (Both of them trained in the US) and top prestigious fellowships (both in the US). They had to pay back Canada for funding their educations but Its a free market folks.
Why is it that people from other countries come here for healthcare when their life depends on it? If you need life saving medicine in a timely fashion, the US is the place to have it. Wait times at the VA are horrible, same with Canada, and Scandinavia.
IT's true! SO if you're in Canada, you can take the boat to the US and pay the premium to have your procedure done in the US, just like the USers do.
You need to tow the party line to do well. I literally had to formulate papers against my own beliefs because I knew there would be grade repercussions.
Did you ever think to maybe try writing your papers based on peer reviewed evidence rather than personal political beliefs?
It's not meant to be a burn. It's something that I'm seriously starting to wonder about with this country. Why does everything have to be about politics? Like the whole COVID thing, why is whether or not you wear a mask a political statement right now? Why are we debating politics about it instead of medicine?
If you're going to deal with any kind of science, your political and religious beliefs have to get pushed aside. Medicine doesn't disprove God, and medical research doesn't negate your opinions on socialism. And in the academic and professional world, your opinion means nothing if you don't do the research to back it up. If you don't believe in vaccinating, you don't have to write about the benefits of vaccines, find the peer reviewed research that goes over the risks. A teacher won't fail someone for doing the research on the opposite of the norm.
And that's what bugs me about the argument against single payer health-care using the "wait times" argument. That argument is extremely easily narrowed down to if there's suddenly wait times, it's because that many people can finally go to the doctor. Meaning that right now, they can't. Which means that arguing against it based on that is arguing that people should die so that you can go see the doctor whenever you feel like it. Meanwhile, the research doesn't show much more of a wait time in countries that use it, it actually shows it being cheaper and causing a healthier community. That's not to say that there aren't negative points, but rather than research them and use the points actually backed by evidence, people keep repeating the same thing they read on facebook once.
Huh, have you ever studied with a hard lined opinionated professor in academia? You could quote whatever the hell you want and it won't matter.
Peer reviewed means nothing if the commentary doesn't match their world view.
Exactly. Everyone has at least some degree of bias (it is just a question of if you are healthy enough to admit it) and even good professors in humanities/social sciences can't escape it entirely. If you are arguing a position the professor finds abhorrent, you are in an uphill battle.
On 6/16/2020 at 2:08 PM, TheDudeWithTheBigDog said:
Out of the top 30 countries, we're the only one who uses a completely capitalistic approach to healthcare. And it's not a coincidence that we also have the highest rate of preventable diseases and mortality because of those diseases.
So, the capitalistic healthcare system is responsible for a country full of unhealthy people choosing an unhealthy lifestyle? People in the Nordic countries are healthier, not because of their Universal healthcare, but the personal lifestyle choices of their citizens, a diet of more fish and less fast food.
Explain to me why Canadians (Universal Healthcare) come to the US for medical treatment?
Explain to me why Canadians (Universal Healthcare) come to the US for medical treatment?
Well, most don't. But a big part of it all comes down to money. Their doctors come here to work because they'll get rich. If you have the ability to pay, we're not that bad. The problem is most of us cannot afford healthcare. We rely on insurance which doesn't work.
Hi, would you share with us why you made this statement?
Because my daughter had to wait long hours when she went to see a physician, where in the US, 15 minutes is the most I have had to wait to see mine. Also, there are more advanced healthcare centers to treat complicated heart procedures. For example, The Cleveland Clinic is one. Although non complicated procedures like uncomplicated MIs , CVAs, and Hypertension can be treated in countries with socialized medicine, but sometimes the candidate has to wait a long time to be seen.
OldEMTNurse, LPN, EMT-I
51 Posts
This is true. My daughter married a Canadian and they had 2 of my grandchildren were born in Canada. They all eventually moved to the US.