I understand that people can't be informed about all the roles in every career out there, but am I the only one who sometimes gets frustrated about people's misconceptions about nursing/your personal career goals within it?
I'm just starting my nursing portion of my BSN in the fall. My ultimate goal is PMHNP. I knew going into this that I was sacrificing "easy explanation of what I do for a living" for all the other things I like about this career path. However, I didn't expect that the misconceptions would start so soon. Things I've heard so far:
Friend 1: "Oh, you want to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner? Do you want to shadow my friend who is a nurse practitioner in L&D?"
Friend 2: "So nursing, is that a hands-on major?" Me: "Yeah, you need a certain a certain number of clinical hours to sit for the licensure exam.." Friend: "Oh, I wasn't sure, since what you're doing is undergrad and not graduate level." (???)
Friend 3 (for the 50th time): "Wait, so psychiatric nurse practitioners can prescribe?"
Friend 4: "Once you go to graduate school and become a mental health nurse..." (He can't keep it straight that BSN=>mental health nurse, NP=>mental health nurse practitioner)
I could go on. I'm very understanding when I respond to these sorts of statements, but it does wear on me a bit.. allnurses is a nice place to vent. Anyone have similar experiences??
Per the rules of House and Grey's Anatomy, nurses only exist to be catalysts to a doctor's heroism, utilized as sexual fantasy, or serve as physician chew toys.
Those who choose to think otherwise typically think I spend eight hours a day elbow deep in excrement and people's personal bits, or that I spend my entire existence charting and eating bon bons.
Or shows like Scrubs (which is HILARIOUS!), where the doctors start the IV's and put the foleys in. All the nurses do is stand around and talk.
Per the rules of House and Grey's Anatomy, nurses only exist to be catalysts to a doctor's heroism, utilized as sexual fantasy, or serve as physician chew toys.
Those who choose to think otherwise typically think I spend eight hours a day elbow deep in excrement and people's personal bits, or that I spend my entire existence charting and eating bon bons.
People know next to nothing about nursing in general and even less about nursing education. I get asked all the time "where did you go to college?" and, after I answer, "and where did you go to nursing school?" And I'm like "uhhh, college = nursing school" (I did a traditional BSN program directly out of high school). People just don't know and you can't really blame them for that, if they don't know any nurses they don't have any reason to know anything about our education. I don't know anything about, say, an engineer's education.
I agree with Cheese Potato, I blame all these TV shows too for people not knowing anything about nursing. On shows like ER, you've got doctors starting IVs, placing NGs, transporting patients, running MRI machines and the nurse only appears when a homeless person needs a bath or when someone needs to be toileted. People are then shocked to come to the hospital and find that they will see their doctor for 15 minutes, max, per day.
It's really funny, because a lot of the misconceptions you all have run into and the ones I have (and believed myself, before getting into nursing school) are totally opposite.
I've always had people be surprised when I talk about how much poop I deal with on a regular basis. They think nursing is all medications and such... which is actually what I thought, too. I'm not sure I would have ever gone into this field if I'd realized how much "grunt work" it actually is. I guess I assumed any field that required higher education would be cleaner. I didn't realize there are hardly ever enough CNAs to do all of the toileting and the nurses have to get their hands dirty so often.
My Navy Commander sister-in-law said this to me, too! My reply to her was, "As a Navy Commander (MSN degree required), I would have expected you to say ANYTHING but that." I don't know why I expected her to know better. I assumed wrong. She's in her military world and I'm in my medical world. So both our expectations failed to meet the other's......
Military RNs are BSN-prepared only, no exceptions. To achieve the rank of CDR, most people do have masters' degrees, but not necessarily. She may not realized (being that she has likely been in the military for a long time) that other degrees are still common on the outside.
A good way to go insane is to worry about others perception of you and or your chosen field. When I was a Cop I was always the go to guy when someone got a ticket or jury duty, I learned that just saying: "I'm (insert profession here) for 'X' amount of hours a day, when I'm off, I'm off, whatever questions you have can be googled, have a wonderful day. lol
People know next to nothing about nursing in general and even less about nursing education. I get asked all the time "where did you go to college?" and, after I answer, "and where did you go to nursing school?" And I'm like "uhhh, college = nursing school" (I did a traditional BSN program directly out of high school). People just don't know and you can't really blame them for that, if they don't know any nurses they don't have any reason to know anything about our education. I don't know anything about, say, an engineer's education.
I agree with Cheese Potato, I blame all these TV shows too for people not knowing anything about nursing. On shows like ER, you've got doctors starting IVs, placing NGs, transporting patients, running MRI machines and the nurse only appears when a homeless person needs a bath or when someone needs to be toileted. People are then shocked to come to the hospital and find that they will see their doctor for 15 minutes, max, per day.
The difference is that you don't presume to know anything about engineering school, the way that so many presume to know about nurses and nursing education!
The difference is that you don't presume to know anything about engineering school, the way that so many presume to know about nurses and nursing education!
Until the shows about the engineer that saves the world comes out...
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
We must also realize that 75 percent of the adult population in America lacks a college degree, and out of that number, a huge percentage has never even attended one hour of college. Many high school dropouts and high school graduates/GED recipients went straight into the workforce instead of continuing their education.
When the vast majority of the populace has either dropped out of high school, or graduated from high school, or earned a GED, or attended a trade school, or done something other than pursue higher education, we're going to have a whole lot of people in society who have no clue about the steps that educated professionals must take to achieve their schooling.
I would sacrifice the lack of knowledge about what nurses do for a general public education program about healthcare in general and ways to prevent coming to the ED to save the country money. Oh whats that, you dont give your kid tylenol after having a fever all day because it is OUR job ( and you cant afford it yet you have your cigarettes you have gone out to smoke 5 times so far)? Oh you want to drink your mega super jug of soda while you sit here telling me you have N/V/D abd pain? You want to yell at me because you didnt get admitted for "pain" control while you sit laugh jump around the room? Give me a break.
Please lets educate people how to take care of themselves first. THEN I will take the time to explain what I or other nurses actually do.
springchick1, ADN, RN
1 Article; 1,769 Posts
Or shows like Scrubs (which is HILARIOUS!), where the doctors start the IV's and put the foleys in. All the nurses do is stand around and talk.