shining_brighteyess

Thank you everyone for your comments. I want to clarify that I do not think nursing is an "embarrassing" profession. I think nurses are wonderful people; in all actuality, I think everyone in hospital faculty are wonderful people because they are all needed to keep a hospital running/take care of the patients. I am only sensitive towards the public perception towards nursing, because I'm worried that if I go into nursing, I'll be faced with a lot of disrespect and will be disenchanted with the career. I know I should worry less about what other people think of me, but it makes me mad that some nurses don't get respect when they do so much for people.

I agree with this. Anytime you see people belittling another, 90% of the time it is because of insecurity. The other 10% is just straight up inability to relate to other human beings. I'm sorry, but anyone who takes the time to belittle someone else in a career probably does not have many friends. When you really think about it, go into any career and you'll find the same thing happening. It's not only with med students and doctors. Secretaries at big companies, paralegals at law firms, etc...they probably all deal with the same disrespect. In all actuality, there's always going to be some ******* at a job that will attempt to bring you down as a person. And insulting someone's career is the fastest way to do it, in their mind. So when you feel belittled as a nurse by a med student or whatever, just remember that no matte what you do, it's going to happen. Hell, even within the medical field, doctors are criticized! I've heard people making fun of psychiatrists for "not being real doctors". It's pretty awful.

I am a high school senior currently interested in pursuing nursing or at least another health care profession (such as speech therapy). I'm planning on trying to get my BSN in nursing. I will admit that because of my recent interest in nursing, I have learned a LOT about the career. Before, I wasn't even quite sure what nurses did; I knew the stereotypes, but I never actually thought about it. Now seeing how difficult it is to get into nursing school, the performance demanded by nursing students in order to get through school, the amount of hours put into becoming a nurse...it is a lot more training than the general public believes. Hell, I'm sure there's people out there that think becoming a nurse is easy. And that's the problem. As awesome a job I think nursing is, and as much as I respect nurses for everything they do, I'm worried about how the general public perceives nursing. I read so much online about how nurses are disrespected, how people don't understand what nurses do, and how the media portrays nurses (i.e. either as hand maidens or naughty nurses). I probably won't be able to watch Scrubs anymore, one of my favorite shows, simply because of the way it tends to portray nursing! I'm very sensitive to this, especially because I can't stand people disrespecting me. I'm afraid that if I became a nurse, I wouldn't be able to just "shrug off" any disrespect I received from others for becoming a nurse. I'm afraid it would really get to me, hurt me, make me become defensive, or even make me switch to another job. So I would really like to know what you nurses think. Do you often feel disrespected, or do you think nursing has a more positive image now? Do more people seem to understand how much work it takes to become, and be, a nurse?