"...Nurses are Doctors SKIVVIES"

[studentdan]

"Why do you want to be a nurse anyway? They're doctors skivvies!"

:devil::devil::devil:

This was what a friend of mine said to me while I was at the bookstore buying some books on Nursing.

I just laughed it off there and then but it only really hit me while I was at home reading the nursing skills book I bought. It has made me so mad that I needed to come straight on here and vent!

I don't think in anyway shape or form that a nurse is a doctors skivvie. Nursing is a profession in its own just as medicine is a profession in its own right.

People [he included] obviously think nurses are hired by doctors! UGH!! I'm that mad right now I can't continue writing this..!

He's in college studying to be an English teacher..

Skivvy: a female domestic servant who does all kinds of menial work. It's used as a slang word sometimes in the UK and Ireland.

[Fiona59]

Skivvies isn't a term used in North America, here we are referred to as "handmaidens".

Skivvies are either underpants or kitchen drudges by every definition I've heard.

[Mell Bell]

I told my gynecologist I was going to be a nurse, and she asked me "why nursing instead of going to med school?". Um, because I don't want to be a doctor?

My family asks me the same thing, most annoying is, "But you're smart enough to be a doctor." Yes, most nurses are smart enough, but we want to be nurses. Like being a nurse is a step down from being a doctor. It drives me nuts sometimes.

[caliotter3]

A similar statement was made by my grandfather, many years ago, but he used less acceptable language.

[studentdan]

I don't like when people ask that question when I say I'm going to become a nurse. I sometimes feel as though they want the answer to be "I'm not intelligent enough to be a doctor.. it's too hard". When really, we just don't want to become doctors. We want to nurse! Nurses need to be really intelligent and it is infact a very hard profession. :)

[PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN]

Sounds like your friend is a mental "skivvy."

Hehe....

[caliotter3]

That is exactly the kind of acknowledgement they are looking for. It wasn't until I was actually in nursing school and working as a CNA, many years later, that I learned the true nature of the difference. Nurses are expected to prevent the mistakes of doctors, but they certainly never get recognized for it. See what happens to the nurse who fails to catch a doctor's mistake.

[leslie :-D]

how archaic.

we've come a looooong way.

leslie:nurse:

[mustlovepoodles, RN]

A similar statement was made by my grandfather, many years ago, but he used less acceptable language.

Yeah, my father said something similar to me when I announced that I wanted to be a nurse. He told me I'd never have anything and never be anything. I did it anyway. Dad never let an opportunity to ridicule me pass him by.

He wasn't laughing when he was dying from lung cancer and I was the only child who would go be with him. Nope, then he was praising me to high heavens and telling all the staff to make their kids go to nursing school. I had to bite my tongue. The old goat.

[oramar]

This won't be the last time you hear negative remarks along that line. In the US the unemployment rate for English majors is about 90%, even people with masters degrees and Phds have a terrible time getting jobs. I don't know what it is for nurses but I estimate a rate of about 2 to 3% for experienced nurses and 7 to 9% for new grads. Unless things are a lot better where you are you friend is going to be the one doing the skivvie thing.

[caliotter3]

Yeah, my father said something similar to me when I announced that I wanted to be a nurse. He told me I'd never have anything and never be anything. I did it anyway. Dad never let an opportunity to ridicule me pass him by.

He wasn't laughing when he was dying from lung cancer and I was the only child who would go be with him. Nope, then he was praising me to high heavens and telling all the staff to make their kids go to nursing school. I had to bite my tongue. The old goat.

If it weren't for the unbearable interference of my Dad, I might have become a nurse back then, instead of always having it as an issue during my entire adult life. Some people have no idea what it means to lend positive support to another.

[Reno1978, BSN, RN]

All I have to say is that at my 10 year high school reunion, my classmates that went on to be English majors are now unemployed in their desired field of teaching or whatever, and I'm quite happily employed in a profession that's rewarding in many ways.