The term "nursing" has lots of historical connotations associated with it. For example, it is female, it is a "handmaiden to the doctor", nurses wear a hat ... etc. Lots of these associations are not accurate anymore in modern nursing.
Inaccurate historical connotations are hard to shake. What do you think if the Nursing profession has a new name?
Some has suggested something like "medic" but that is taken already and it does not fully describe what nursing is all about.
For a new name, whatever it is, it has give the image of compaasion and caring, healing, plus other images that is accurate to the Nursing profession.
The poll tries to see if you think a new name for the Nursing profession will help or not.
If you do think a new name will help, suggestion for a new name?
Yes all good suggestions misplaced1. The problem is stakeholder involment, there would be such overwhelming resistance to a generic name change. We guys that want something less female should have the right to assume an alternative, even something, again, not gender neutral. Along the lines you suggested I would be comfortable with something like Carefeller or Carefellow.
We are a type of manager and a little bit of every multidisciplinary team member. I mean I reckon I could take an xray if I wanted, well maybe not but i am glad I am not stuck in my own little medical/ speech pathologist/ etc world. Its a big bad world out here, though, when you are trying to manage everybodies behaviours.
You know after reaing your response I started thinking about that. People could have all the resistance they wanted but in the end if a hospital decided they wanted to call you a carefellow or health monitor instead of a nurse how many people do you think would turn down the job? Not many I suspect if the salary and working conditions were alright. They could require an RN for the job but make the clinical title health monitor, etc. The pharmacuetical company has RN's that they call clinical monitors, what is the difference. In fact it may get rid of some of the "this is not a job and you should not care about the salary stuff, the stuff that is normally associated with nuns. I am not a nun. I like to take care of people but I am not a nun, I expect to be treated as a professional and I need to get paid comensurate with my responsibilites. I also am not a trashman, a caterer or a Walmart employee. And I like you and want to help you but that doesn't mean you can abuse me.
I bet that airlines would not be employing so many men if the title was still stewardess instead of flight attendent. Moreover, in the old days a "stewardess" was a sexy lady in a skimpy outfit. A flight attendent is a professional person that attends to my needs as an airline customer. BIG DIFFERENCE.
I personally don't think nursing is going to more into the "professional" realm until there is a name change. Flame away, that is my personal belief. But I also feel that everyone should have the same entry level education into the field, it would promote harmony.
I must say I agree wholeheartedly. My experience has led me to working in a Nursing Home in Australia, not very glamourous, but it is a challenging environment. It is the domain of some very out dated or quaint practices, like RN's are still generally called "sister" and it was even written on the day sheet until very recently. This is symptomatic of a heirachical belief system that sustains this environment and unfortunately contributes to a high level of institutionalisation.
footsoldier
12 Posts
Yes all good suggestions misplaced1. The problem is stakeholder involment, there would be such overwhelming resistance to a generic name change. We guys that want something less female should have the right to assume an alternative, even something, again, not gender neutral. Along the lines you suggested I would be comfortable with something like Carefeller or Carefellow.
We are a type of manager and a little bit of every multidisciplinary team member. I mean I reckon I could take an xray if I wanted, well maybe not but i am glad I am not stuck in my own little medical/ speech pathologist/ etc world. Its a big bad world out here, though, when you are trying to manage everybodies behaviours.