Professionalism in nursing

Sounds like some ones writting a thesis. I think your answer to this may differ depending on the type of nurse that replies. After doning management for many years I would say that the poweres to be would consider the first list to be an indicator of prof. of nursing. However, my true honest answer is the latter. If I think of what truly makes a difference in a pt's life (living or dying) it would be the second list. A nurse can have all the theories in the world, but function like a fish out of water when push comes to shuve in a critical situation. If a loved one is lying dying in an ER, I would say that if you were to ask any family member, skill would be their first choice. Everything else at that point is out the window. I also think the two lists are interchangabel in many ways. I also think that the medical profession as a whole needs to get back to basics. We've made things way too complicated , it seem schools and coorporations have lost the reason why we are all there in the first place. Not to make nice hotel- like stays, not to make everyone happy, we are there to save lives. Everynurse should be rapid response nurse capable in my estimation.I don't care how they can complete a research project. No nursing has not obtained prof status. But I'm not sure that some of the things listed would necassarily acheive that either.

I don't know if this is the right place to bring this up, but when I saw your topic it got me stirring. This issue of proffessionalism @ my hospital I work at has gone to the dogs! I work a med-surg unit, and we have nurses adies on our floor. I see a bad trend of hirees recently that all think they are there to Hang out & have fun. They stand around, chat about personal stuff all the time, including over a patients bed while changing them.... this is only a small piece of it. I have caught them cutting corners on things like vital signs, I & O'S, they leave the rooms a mess..... It is to the point I am ashamed to work there at times.... I have already been to the floor supervisor twice..... She assured me she would address it....... well if she even did... it made no impact..... I don'y want to keep mentioning it to her as I don't want to alienate my co-workers... Believe me we have some excellent aides... just far & few between.. any suggestions would be great!

I do not think nursing is truly a profession. We are struggling to become one, but are not there yet.

I feel the primary evidence which demonstrates that nursing is not a true profession is our lack of power, control, and autonomy in practice.

We do not control nursing- how it is practiced, the resources needed, or the conditions in which we practice.

As individual nurses, it is like we are each in a stormy sea, being whipped about by the current and wind. We struggle to control the direction of our little dinghies, but we lack sails, a rudder, an engine.

1. How many members of a true profession are repremanded for staying over time without authorization?

2. How many members of a true profession are called into a supervisor's office and counseled for not behaving like happy servants with their "clients"?

3. How many true professionals experience having their knowledge, judgement, and opinions routinely discounted and disregarded?

4. How many true professions have a huge, ongoing issue with being mistreated, verbally abused, and talked down to by another profession?

5. How many true professionals find that their working environments and conditions are becoming more and more intolerable, yet they find themselves powerless to do anything to change the situation, other than to job hop?

I'm sure, that for a true profession, the answer to all of these questions is none.

NDX: Nursing- failure to become a profession, secondary to lack of power of the occupation as whole to control and direct its own practice, AEB: see 1-5 above.

[banana]Hellllllo Nurse is my hero[/banana]

That post should be required reading in every nursing program. For starters...

My goodness, Emmanuel.

Thank you.

:flowersfo

My goodness, Emmauel.

Thank you.

:flowersfo

:)

......The glass is half empty or half full depending on how you choose to look at it.....

I think of it as a bedpan, rather than a glass-

To me, it's not whether it's half full or empty; it's what's in it.

I love daisies!

:)

Me, too. I think I have approx ten daisy print scrub tops.

I see nothing professional about nursing at all. I see a lot being a new nurse .. more than maybe those with experience would notice. But, to me... seeing staff run around like a chicken with their head cut off every single minute of every day is not professional! Nor, is the stress level and tension felt on a daily basis. How can you even begin to call it a profession when there is absolutely no respect among the staff. You have this LPN and this RN who don't get along, or this LPN thinks because she's been an LPN for longer than this RN has been an RN that she knows more.. yet the RN knows that isn't true.. so they're both butt hurt and struggling to show that they know more. You have this CNA who refuses to listen to what the LPN has told her, the LPN writes her up because she just does not have the time or patience to MAKE this CNA do her job. THIS IS NOT PROFESSIONAL.. its a cluster fuc*. Regardless, I love my job and the "path" I have chosen and will never change it as far as I can see. And by definition a Profession is: a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science. Yes, it is a profession.. yet it lacks professionalism.

Me, too. I think I have approx ten daisy print scrub tops.

I thought I had one too, until a patient said "Oooooo! I love posies!"

Oops.

Has nursing achieved professional status?

Can we discuss about issues related in nursing professionalism ect:

1. evidence based practice

2.Graduate nurses

3.autonomy in practice

4.compentency based

5.nurses association

And issues based on criteria of nursing profession.

1.Intellectual

2.body of knowledge

3.practical and theoretical.

4.organization

5.standards of practice

How about professionalism extended to the clinical instructor/student dynamic? I find that clinical instructors can be angelic to evil incarnate. Yet, professors and other staff prefer to take the ostrich approach and hope these whiny students graduate before making too big an issue of it; then repeat. There are no prerequisites other than RN to fill these jobs. As a soon to be nurse, how can I be a part of a culture that allows the abuse shown to students in the clinical setting? Most schools are purely subjective in their grading, so unless you have been taking notes on the side and recording abusive behavior, you are at their mercy. The clinical leaders are always on their side; it is like talking to a brick wall when you try to tell your side of the story.

This is the ugly side of nursing that is never spoken of in the academic setting for fear of retribution from the professors. I have realized that nurses are just as petty and egotistically charged as the next cardiologist, MBA, JD, Psych PhD, et al. Unfortunately, empirical grading (read: objective) is not part of nurse clinical teaching and are subject to the whims of whomever is there no matter how much of a bully they prove themselves to be.

I must say, this is not who I wish to become should I wish to advance my career. The abject lack of professionalism from some clinical instructors and two clinical leaders (so far) has sealed the deal for me; I have rejected MSN/DNP/PhD because I find too many of these people are too concerned with image of their respective schools and a profession as a whole. They will, at the student's expense, do whatever it takes to show the world how we are just as educated and critically thinking as our MD counterparts. They purposely eviscerate our GPAs to show the world how "tough" nursing school is and boy, don't you ever forget it.

Want to strategize how to keep nurses in the profession when they graduate? Treat them with the respect you would receive from them. Why would I stay in a culture that purposely demoralizes their troops?

Nursing on the whole needs to stop this juggernaut of promoting image at the expense of its future generations. It is hard to keep nurses when not even their own faculty respected their decision to pursue nursing, AEB the thousands of horror stories told about student clinical experience.