Beowoulf

In my psych ward, we carry a max of 7 pts. If they try to saddle us with more, we ALL immediately fill out a dangerous work conditions form. These forms state that we evaluate the situation to be dangerous and will not be responsible for catastrophes. Our union takes these forms quite seriously. If the union gets one form, the admins. get a phone call. If they get a few of these on the same issue, a meeting is set up to find a solution. Your admins need to know that you WILL NOT be placed in that kind of situation. From what I read on here, it is my (male) opinion that nurses need a LOT of work on BOUNDARIES. I think the "overwork motif" in nursing has become the standard because the job's essence was formed in femaleness. Females are mothers. And who always gets left "holding the bag?" MOTHERS! And what mother is going to say to it's baby, "No, I am too busy."? Seems to be a kind of "role transference" as though "mother" and "nurse" are the same thing. It is my (male) opinion that they are not.

"And people in hell want ice water..."

One of my favorite sayings is: "What gets done (and how fast) is directly related to who is being inconvenienced." It's NURSES who are being inconvenienced ... inconvenience a "higher up" and watch how fast things change....

Hi Maine folks (and those who love them)! I'm male and in my early 50's. I lived in Maine most of my life. In May, I finished a direct entry Master of Nursing program in Montreal and am working full time as a psych nurse in one of the big hospitals. With a Master's degree, I started at $26 an hour, plus all the differentials. All I can think about is how much I miss Maine and want to move back there. (I lived in the Portland area.) Montreal is a HUGE city, by Maine standards, and is incredibly expensive to live in. You should SEE the prices for houses!!!! (Saw a modest Cape Code built in the 1940's - still had it's original windows - selling for $349,000!!!!!!!!!!!) The sales tax is 14% (reduced recently from 15%) and income tax is 45% !!!!!! All I do is scream over and over, "How do people LIVE in Canada????" The CRUSH of people during rush hour is frightening ... people crammed - and I mean CRAMMED - onto busses and subways. Can you tell I don't like it here? LOL Does anyone know if Maine recognizes the nursing license from Quebec? I know they recognize the one from CANADA, but Quebec - in their endless need to emphasize how different they are from the rest of Canada - has invented their own nursing exam and license. I SO want to move back to Portland. For psych, wihich I kind of like, I know there is Spring Harbor, and the MMC has P6. I also wouldn't mind an adminsitrative or teaching position... Sigh... The leaves must be great there now. The Cumberland and Fryeburg Fairs are recently over. ( I missed them again this year :( ) Time to go apple picking at Terrison's Orchards, isn't it? Any insight into the Portland nursing "market"? Anyone working in Maine who has recently moved there from Quebec?

i'm not sure what the latest stats are, but i know that here in canada there is a terrible nurse shortage. i'm pretty sure it is still that way in the states, too. an over-worked, under-paid, under-appreciated nurse (or entire staff of nurses) is not in the best interest of the patients. yet, for all the sociological reasons mentioned (including the historically conditioned title), we are only drawing applicants from 50% of the population. we need more nurses and that other 50% is not going to even consider nursing unless the images (and many of the realities) change. we nurses, and those close to us, know what is involved with nursing, but as i often explain to friends, a nurse is like an iceberg: two-thirds of what is happening is going on under the surface. the public needs to be enlightened and images need to be changed. one of the points i made in my seminar presentation (to the delight of the female 99.9% of the audience) was that the changes needed to make nursing attractive to men are also going to make nursing more attractive to "modern-day" women, including those already in the profession. a professional, competent, and altruistic gift-of-self for the good of humanity is great ... but who is going to turn down added power, social prestige, and income? another way more men in the profession will help alleviate the shortage is that men are more likely to be working full time. (this was a discovery gleaned from a study looking into how men are more likely to be in the "higher" nursing hospital positions). women are more likely to work part-time because they often choose to have mat leave, choose to spend more time with the children during the school years, and other reasons. no, i disagree. we really need to "market" to that other 50%.

many studies (see: chung, 2000; paterson, tschitkota, crawford, et al., 1995; kelly, shoemaker & steele, 1994; villeneuve, 1994) have looked into the possibility that what nursing professors (who are mostly female) unconsciously mean when they say, "think like a nurse" is "think like a woman" - because of the almost-exclusive female historical connection. it is up to men to discern and validate a "male approach" to being a nurse. certainly, there will be much overlap in approach, but just as certainly, men bring a lot that is unique and good to nursing.

Using stereotypical images (macho men) to undo other stereotypical images (male nurses must be girly-men) is just sad. Plain old sad.

i think the word we finally settled on with regard to the lowly janitor is "custodian" .. precisely because the word "janitor" came to mean "low, unskilled, looked-down-upon person." (e.g. "your father is a janitor!") "custodian" is a kinder, more sensitive word that has yet to acquire the judgement often associated - consciously or unconsciously - with the word "janitor." i couldn't disagree with you more. words have terrific power in influencing our interpretations and judgements. i can think of a few racial words that people would not dream of using today because of the negativity associated with them ... whereas these words were acceptable in polite company a century or so ago. (e.g. read tom sawyer...) as you point out, changing the title alone is not nearly enough. the things that rob nurses of social power and prestige (and money) are as pervasive as the things that rob women in general of the very same things. words are the physicians of the mind diseased. aeschylus, prometheus bound greek tragic dramatist (525 bc - 456 bc) for me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. ingrid bengis language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides. rita mae brown, starting from scratch, 1988 us author and social activist words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. it is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses. william butler yeats (1865–1939), irish poet, playwright. letter, feb. 3, 1889. collected letters, vol. 1, ed. john kelly (1986).

That topic was one of the discussion questions at the end of the 90 minutes. No consensus could be reached. Maybe the ANA or CNA could take it up at their next national conventions! Then the ANA would be the A?A ...

i wish i could share with you the 90 minute presentation i did in a seminar for my master in nursing degree entitled gender issues in nursing. a major conclusion was that the name needed to change for the benefit of both male and female nurses. despite a long history of men in "nurse-like" positions (e.g. knights templar, the knights hospitallers, the teutonic knights, the parabolani, the augustinian brothers, and many more...), for all practical purposes, nursing history seems to begin with florence nightengale and is steeped in female nature and history. it is no secret that women were 2nd class citizens until very recently (and in some places, still). it is that female nature and history that contributes to nursing being seen as a 2nd class profession - though that image is changing. come on, men (and even women), if you were (are) a nursing student in recent years, how many times were you asked, "why did you choose nursing?? you seem smart enough to have been a doctor!" the "2nd class-ness" that was and is associated with women is also associated with nursing. just look how nurses are treated. if it had been a man's profession from the beginning, nurses would have power and respect comparable to doctors (and the money!) i have checked this out with all of my friends and without exception, consciously or unconsciously, they all held the image that "nurse" was essentially "hand-maiden" to the doctor. you only have to look at tv or the movies to see it reinforced over and over. the history and nature of the word "nurse" is tainted with the decades of women's oppression. the percentage of men in nursing has held in the 4 to 6 percent range for decades. women have poured into traditional male fields but the reverse trend has not happened and will not happen until some perceptions change - not only in hollywood, but in nursing schools as well! among other much needed changes, it's time to update the job title. p.s. i've always favored the title "emperor," myself...

Hi.... An American here who just graduated from a direct entry Masters program in Quebec. The next "board" exam for Quebec is in Mid-September. Due to the fact that Quebec has to keep hammering home how DIFFERENT they are, the test here in Quebec is WAY different from the NCLEX or the CNE (Canadian Nurses Exam). In its effort to be DIFFERENT (did I mention that Quebec emphasizes that they want to be DIFFERENT from the rest of North America?), the Quebec test is a TWO DAY ordeal. The first day consists of 100 short answer questions (not multiple choice) and the second day is a series of live simulated clinical scenarios (13 to 15 or so) where you walk into a room and there is a patient, a "grader", a set of instructions, and the medical tools you will need. You have 10 minutes to show the grader that you know what to do in this situation that has just been sprung on you. (During the student initiated and executed Career Week, we had last year's students come to tell us about their first year of "real life", including their experience with the test. One of them said she had imagined that the live simulation part would be the worst experience of her life ... but then she clarified it ... she said it was far more horrible than anything she could have ever imagined.) Anyway, as I said, I have just graduated from a direct entry Masters program and ... this program could barely be bothered with teaching us about clinical things. "YOU ARE NOT IN AN UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL ANYMORE," they would regularly tell us in a very condescending tone. "DON'T EXPECT US TO SERVE IT TO YOU ON A SILVER PLATTER. AT THE MASTER'S LEVEL, IT IS EXPECTED THAT YOU WILL DETERMINE ON YOUR OWN WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW AND THEN GO AND LEARN IT." Well ... that might be fine for a normal Master's level program, but it doesn't work for a direct entry program. In order to know what you don't know, you have to have some background in the field. Can you believe that for our ENTIRE third (final) year, we had NO clinical exposure to patients in any setting whatsoever??? NONE! Instead, we read articles from professonal journals and gave presentations and discussed the related clinical implications.... I feel SO BAD for how the B.A. and pre-B.A. trained nurses must feel when a direct entry Master's clown traipses in and gets paid more than they do. Granted, I have been trained in Advanced Practice Nursing and in Nursing Theory and Nursing Research ... but still, as I frequently complained, "The Advanced Practice Nursing training is almost meaningless without the BASIC PRACTICE training." So... why this rant? The BIG TEST is coming up and I am lucky if I know a Foley from a Swan-Ganz. They are not going to test me on Patricia Benner's theory of Clinical judgment and How expert nurses use intuition. So here I am preparing, looking at this STACK of basic nursing books. All stacked together, I cannot imagine how many thousands of pages. What am I supposed to do?? I want to work in psychiatry. Right now, I have a job as a "pre-nurse" in a hospital's psych ward. I have a natural gift in that area. (I'm over 50 and have some of the wisdom of age....) But I am SO bowled over by the thought of that exam. I find myself doing all sorts of avoidance behavior regarding studying. (Take this email, for example.) Well .. what I really want to ask is ... both of Quebec's tests are scenario based .. and, come to find out, I seem to learn best with scenario-based learning. I learn best by example ... which explains why I had to hang on for dear life in the "go learn it on your own" mentality of my program. I NEED CONTEXT!!!! So... do any of you know of scenario based prep resources - either on the net or in print? To its credit, the Quebec Order of Nurses publishes a very helpful scenario based prep-book ... but ... there are only so many scenarios (with the "right" answers) that they can put in one book. I have also found that Mosby's Canadian prep book has an accompanying scenarios book which will be helpful (again, with the right answers.) Seems like there must be other such resources available? Yes? Anyone? Someone?

Check this out. Most of my MScN (A) class uses it. http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?T1=81782773

I am about to begin my last of 3 years in a direct entry master's program at a very prestigious Canadian university. Direct entry means that they take people with BAs in other fields and "fast track" them into nursing. The idea is that the nursing field will be "enriched" by having people with different backgrounds and experiences. The principal foci of our program are research, nursing theory, and family nursing. There is not alot of emphasis on clinical. The profs at our school stress that this is a SELF-DIRECTED learning program - which *I* think they use to relieve themselves of the chores of thorough and systematic teaching. We are frequently admonished, "This is a MASTER'S program! You're not undergrads anymore! You need to take care of your own learning needs!!!" But, I object, one needs to know something about what should be learned before you can even ask the right questions! Here's my problem: Assuming I pass this final year (It has been VERY tough ... especially due to the reputation of the school and the fact that I am in class with all geniuses - really!), I'm not going to know SQUAT about the kind of nursing you guys all talk about on here: bedside nursing in a hospital. I can't IMAGINE passing the NCLEX (I'm American) with all of its detailed questions on clinical nursing. (I don't imagine there will be many questions on things like Leventhal's Theory of Self-Regulation and Jean Watson's Theory of Human Caring in Nursing!!) I feel like an idiot in clinical settings where people with an Associate's degree or students from "normal" nursing schools put me to shame with their knowledge. And I am sure they must regard me with a kind of contempt: "THIS guy is going to have a MASTER'S degree??? He barely knows a chest tube from a Foley!!!!" They must feel a certain injustice about it all. I would also think that some of you reading this post probably feel a little steamed. Right now, I am working on my graduation project. It involves administering a Patient Satisfaction survey to clients in an ambulatory oncology clinic. We will then apply our findings to Continuous Quality Improvement initiatives and re-measure patient satisfaction. I am supposed to write it all up and submit it for publication in a nursing journal. I'm a 50 year old man and have two BAs. I've worked for years in hospitals in pastoral care. You'd think I'd feel proud about being in this program, but mostly I just feel like an imposter. Graduates go on to get a year or two of staff nurse experience and then apply for those "other" nursing jobs. I'm not sure why I am writing this post. Maybe it is just to get out SOME of the things that have really been bothering me. Can some of you share perspectives? I'm just tired of feeling bad about all this.

Take a look at the Tungsten C .. Keyboard on the bottom of the unit is MOST handy. I use mine many times each day.