Local Op/ed piece:
Primary Care:Nurses don't play second fiddle when it comes to your health.
Primary Care
Nurses don't play second fiddle when it comes to your health.
by Jenn Carbin
An accomplished, open-minded friend recently told me that an 11-year-old she knows is talking about becoming a nurse. My friend explained that because this child is "very bright," she asked her if she'd considered becoming a doctor. "Are you not interested in calling the shots?" my friend wanted to know.
Her question reflects a commonly held view of health care, which is that nurses work for doctors and that the excitement and challenge of medicine is experienced, and egged on, by doctors. The general idea is that if you're bright and interested in throwing your lot into health care, surely you should go for the brass ring, an M.D. Doctors have the more important challenges. Many suspect that nurses would be doctors if only they could: if they were smarter, more confident, had rich parents or more opportunities.
I strongly suspect that had this child said she wanted to be a lawyer, my friend wouldn't have asked, "Why not a doctor?"
Yet nursing is not only as important as those two professions, but as distinct. In fact, the only areas where that distinctiveness -- nursing's focus on all-around care and patient-centered interventions -- becomes less apparent are advanced fields where nurses are acquiring responsibilities practically indistinguishable from those of physicians.
If you took nurses out of medical facilities for a day, health care as we know it would shut down. Though we pin our greatest hopes on physicians, the same can't be said about them.
Patient monitoring and palliative care are essential aspects of health care, and belong to nursing.
Women, of course, make up the majority of the nursing population, and this leads to problematic views. Romantics see nurses as purely selfless beings who simply don't mind cleaning up vomit. Then there is the related idea that nursing must be mere "women's work," far outside of science. Lastly, there is what some would tout as a more evolved, feminist view, which is that nursing is a prescribed role for women, and that female nurses should just believe in themselves already and become physicians.
But despite what some women's studies texts will tell you, nursing is not a default profession.
Not anymore, anyway. It's an exciting profession with a wealth of opportunities. And that's a good thing, because our country in the next few years is going to be desperate for registered nurses. Experts predict that the nursing shortage currently threatening health care is set to get worse over the next 15 years. Many nurses will retire, and the population, particularly the elderly portion of it, will increase substantially.
It's important to know, then, that opportunities and diverse nursing career paths abound. Don't want to work for decades in a hospital? Studies show that just 52 percent of nurses are practicing in traditional health-care settings, and by 2010, that number is expected to drop to less than 40 percent.
There's a lot going on. Most nurses these days acquire a bachelor of science in nursing, though some experienced RNs mourn the hands-on hospital "diploma schools" of just a few years ago. Men are joining the ranks in increasing numbers. We need more.
Challenges? In addition to doing such things as monitoring vital signs, educating patients, creating patient reports, keeping physicians up-to-date and dispensing treatments, nurses specialize. A student of registered nursing may consider a future in surgical nursing (with a tidy weekday schedule), critical care, pediatrics, geriatrics or labor and delivery, among other areas. Do you want to practice gynecology, deliver babies and write prescriptions yourself? Get an advanced degree and become a licensed nurse practitioner. Do you have academic interests or a flair for business? Are you a natural leader? More and more, nurses are acquiring M.S. degrees, MBAs and Ph.D.s. The job options include teaching, research, management, administration, running a home-care network or editing a nursing journal.
Outpatient surgery clinics, which offer diverse patient populations, regular schedules and multiple challenges, are virtually run by nurses. RNs get lots of respect in these facilities.
Part of the problem with the image of nursing is, of course, the fact that for years it was an underpaid profession.
But health-care institutions have come to see palliative care as requiring talent, even expertise. Due to this and in light of requirements for specialty areas, they are paying a much more appropriate wage these days.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, half of all RNs earned between $37,870 and $54,000 in 2000.
Given increasing demand, nursing salaries will only grow and benefit packages, which these days often include education benefits and childcare, will only become more enticing. Health-care management teams are right now thinking of ways to entice RNs.
Certainly the science of medicine, the quest for cure and (by and large) the art of diagnosis are the domain of doctors. But good nursing requires intelligence, specialized knowledge, a hearty appetite for problem solving, physical stamina, and at times, steely nerve, among other things. Nurses shouldn't ever be considered second fiddle.
Jenn Carbin, a freelance journalist, is a former associate editor for the magazine Outpatient Surgery and former staff writer for City Paper. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper editor in chief, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail [email protected].
What will it take to get nurses to be seen as something other than the doctors handmaiden?!
