My inner snowflake

[Emergent]

When it boils down to it, I really wish that nursing was less blue collar and more decorous and professional. Some of my colleagues sound and act like rowdy high school kids. They forget there are patients in the rooms and loudly socialize at the nursing station.

They form immature cliques and and engage in lowbrow social posturing, making ribald remarks. A few of them make egregious grammatical errors in every day speech.

I'm hardly a prudish stick in the mud, but if nursing is going to be a true profession we need to start acting like college educated, white collar people who don't spend our down time in bars...

[foggnm]

I have often referred to nursing as blue collar to others. Hospital nursing is mundane, repetitive, dirty work (receive report, assess patient, pass meds, perform procedures, chart, rinse/repeat, do I/Os, give report). Outpatient is different, but similarly repetitive. Assessment is perhaps the only part of our jobs where real thinking and problem solving is done (and the part where you see the difference between regular and exceptional nurses). When you walk in to a shift 95% of your day is based on orders and the remaining 5% is for your creativity or intellect. Can we stop pretending that it is white collar and requiring these 20 year old nursing students to get 4.0 GPAs to get in to programs that result in jobs where you pass meds, chart novels on unimportant events, and give enemas. I had a true white collar profession before becoming a nurse where every day my work varied significantly and there were lots of interesting things to learn; nursing hasn't been like that at all. In short, nursing is a blue collar job but does require a lot of different skills. But don't expect your coworkers to act differently, the hospital isn't an accounting office.

[Fiona59]

Maybe requiring BSNs for professional entry and stiff competition for entry into nursing programs will help attract a more professional group?

It's been mandatory since 2009 in my province for RNs to do the degree programme.

No change has been noticeable.

[cleback]

Just to clarify my statement on more BSNs, it was not a dig at my associate degree friends. I meant that training/education is one hallmark of considering an occupation "professional", so requiring more may attract a different crowd to nursing as a whole. But it's just a thought. Other posters have spoken to the lack of creativity in the work that diminishes the profession. I agree with that too--the standardization of care and merging of many healthcare organizations have left very little opportunity for staff nurses to have autonomy/any creativity. Not sure how to remedy that.

[caliotter3]

I totally agree!! I have seen so many nurses behave unprofessionally its downright embarrassing. Some people need to understand the difference between work and play, and know how to behave in a professional manner at work. Is it not taught is school anymore, or just society in general?? I don't know, but nurses will not ever get the respect we should if some continue to behave badly.

If you spend any time observing how many of my neighbors in an apartment complex raise their children, you can see that bad behavior is learned from an early age. Emphasis placed on bad behavior by the parents out there modeling the behavior. One thing to ignore what your kids are doing, quite another to be showing them how to act like jerks. Of course this is going to carry over into society, including the workplace, when these kids come of age.

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

I know plenty of blue collar folks who speak proper English, do not engage in exchanges of crass humor and don't spend time in bars, but plenty of white collar people who do the opposite.

Sorry, but as someone raised by two people who met in an automotive plant, I do not much care with how you broached this subject, ma'am.

[audreysmagic, RN]

You can be classy and poor and you can be uncouth and rich... I think it's less the societal class and more the values and behavior people are raised with, honestly.

[Nursferatu]

I left a white collar tech job and decided to pursue my dream of working in medicine. I had no degree and yet still managed to work hard, have fun, and be professional. I now work in an ED in a suburban setting and the people I work with, many with 2 year degrees and working on their BSNs. Yup, we sometimes get loud and raucous but for the most part it's a well run team. Think about where the Stanford rapist grew up and the level of entitlement seen in many "Affluenza" families, I'd say employment type isn't what makes you a better person. I have also learnd through personal experience that a college degree doesn't mean you're educated. Sure, education and training are important but enacting standards that help maintain decorum while allowing people to be humans dealing with sometimes seriously difficult scenarios is not so much a class thing as a management thing.

[WKShadowNP, DNP, APRN]

Agreed. I do cosplay at comic/sci-fi/media conventions frequently; it's a fun hobby, and I keep it fairly modest due to personal preference (though on my off time, not representing my employer, it would be my right if I wanted to show a little skin). It IS fun seeing the look on someone's face when I'm chilling in line in a Sailor Moon costume and someone I've struck up a conversation with asks me what I do for a living... A lot of people don't see it as something a nurse would be interested in, but this nurse is. We all have the right to cut loose and have fun on our off time. I think the problem comes in when some people act at work the same way they would at the bar.

I would love to do this! I want to be so many things if I could make the costumes and had time and money to go to those.

How fun and what a creative outlet. Good for you.

[Farawyn]

I know plenty of blue collar folks who speak proper English, do not engage in exchanges of crass humor and don't spend time in bars, but plenty of white collar people who do the opposite.

Sorry, but as someone raised by two people who met in an automotive plant, I do not much care with how you broached this subject, ma'am.

Good point.

Maybe not white collar, but hey, let's all just be more professional.

You can be a professional at any station of work.

I'm not touching the ADN/BSN stuff. Hasn't that been DONE to death?

[Farawyn]

You can be classy and poor and you can be uncouth and rich... I think it's less the societal class and more the values and behavior people are raised with, honestly.

*cough TRUMP cough*

[ThePrincessBride, MSN, RN, NP]

Nursing is a trade, a blue-collar one at that. It needs to stop trying to be something it isn't.

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

I can admit I am a bar going, dirty joke telling, sarcastic, and very vocal nurse. That being said, there is a time and place. I have found that the loudness and inappropriate behavior is contagious. I have seen plenty crusty bat nurses laugh right alongside a brand new grad about a patient's issue. Most do not do it to be mean, but use it more of a coping skill. Shoot I know I have done it. It isn't because of the patient, but sometimes the irony of the situation.