pulic image of nurses

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please let me know what your views are on this subject. Thanks

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Seashells,

I see that this is your first post on the allnurses.com board. Welcome and I have a question for you...

What exactly are you asking? The reason I ask is because of your question: "pulic image of nurses...please let me know what your views are on this subject."

I am questioning you because you are asking folks who may be a little biased... I don't think that "the public" comes to this site - only nurses.

My answer to your question can be found on other posts to this site but if I were to sum them all up I'd have to say that although the public gives nurses/nursing good lip service I feel that the public doesn't really value us. It has been my experience that the public only values us when they need us...The same can be said for garbage men, auto mechanics, and bus drivers.

Also, I noticed that you are from Freedom, Pa. Perhaps you work in Beaver county too- The Medical Center perhaps or Sewickley Hospital? Maybe good old Aliquippa Hospital A.K.A. "UPMC Beaver"? If thats the case I can only say "hang in there"... I live in Beaver county too.

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what i am asking is nurses reply to the public image they receive either in their workplace or as word of mouth . I work at passavant in the north hills

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We are "brainless drones", All we do is "follow doctors orders, how hard could that be?" "Putting in a catheter can't be hard, all you do is stick it up there" "giving blood only takes a minute", "the doctors are the ones who are responsible for the patients lives", "you're smart, why didn't you become a doctor?". I have been hearing this stuff since I started nursing school and it isn't going to end anytime soon.

As for my patients, I had to laugh the other day when a labor coach whispered to me "I didn't know the nurses did all the work" as the OBdoc left the room again.

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It's a well-guarded secret what nurses do! Hospital administration and even doctors have a vested interest in putting us before the public as nice little people who try to do as they are told. I don't think they would want anyone to know that such poorly-paid, low-on-the-pecking order people are actually responsible for life and death. So a lot of what we do is a secret!

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I guess one of the best "public" images I've received was the time I was at a club and some guy asked me what I did for a living. When I told him I am a nurse he said Ugh! AIDS and ran like h_ _ _ _.

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