When I first came to this profession there were a lot of nurses who warned me to be careful "nurses eat their young".. Surely being a buck I didn't know what to expect but I learned fast... I was outed for not using the dictionary of terms in the alaris pump but instead starting the fluids as "fluids" with the correct rate and volume in an emergency situation but never going back to type in the words...ooops. But that nurse told the boss floor mgr who didn't do anything so then she went above that manager and so on and so on. How humiliating for me and stupid. Yes stupid now that I look back on it. She could have just said don't forget to program the drug in there... I would never do that to a new nurse.. That was an excellent teaching moment...I said this to say we have to work together...
As for our profession, with all due respect, I believe the general consensus is that people see it as a subservient role, I should say some people, not all. It is because of this that we are EXPECTED to suffer. This expectation is what allows us to be overlooked, undervalued, and sometimes not appreciated. Not fair, I know, but somewhere along the lines we need to see some policy change that reflects and respects how instrumental and pertinent our well-conceived vocations are with the work that we do as we continue to shape the framework for healthcare.
