I checked in on the edmonton sun webpage today to see if there have been any replies to T.A Ball's statements about nurses and this is what I found:
RE: OCT. 29 letter. I oppose Carol Carbol's labelling of nurses as professionals. Nursing should not be awarded the same status as a true profession such as law, accounting, medicine or dentistry. A true professional performs highly complex tasks and demonstrates a high level of judgment. Nurses must follow policy and procedure and make low-level operational decisions. As an accountant, I am insulted that a nurse would believe they are my equal.
Ivan Miller (Don't get sick.)
Isn't that ridiculous? People just don't seem to understand what nurses really do, and the level of knowledge you need to become a nurse. Since I was a young girl I have always admired nurses and thought they were incredibly smart. Being a student nurse, I realize how much I need to understand before I graduate and looking at all you nurses on this forum, I think you are some of the most amazing people in the world with so much to offer and we ARE professionals. If we weren't I wouldnt have received a "credit line for professional students" to get through school. Anyway, just wondering what u guys thought about this. I didn't realize people could be so ignorant.
Here's the letter I wrote to the editor, maybe a little harsh
Dear Ivan Miller,
I'm surprised that you have the nerve to call a nurse inferior to you. The definition of a profession is: "an occupation that requires extensive training and the study and mastery of specialized knowledge, and usually has a professional association, ethical code and process of licensing or certification." Nurses have a professional license to practice and have to pass the CRNE in order to be an RN, as well as having a degree or diploma. Accounting and nursing are two completely different professions. The major difference being, if you make a mistake in accounting, nobody gets hurt.
Nurses are expected to constantly be making high-level life or death decisions. For example, if a doctor was to order a potassium supplement while the patient was on digoxin, the nurse would be the professional who understands the pharmacokinetics of meds and refuse to give those drugs together due to the adverse effects of combining the two. I'm sure if you were this patient you would want the nurse there to catch this mistake, rather than have someone unprofessional, without the extensive knowledge of nursing to adminster this drug to you.
By the way, according to labour market info for alberta, RNs generally make 29.64 an hour compared to accountants, who make 24.31 an hour. I wonder why the inferior, unprofessional would be making more money?
But the best thing that you could wish for is that all in that province now know his name, and if he ever requires the services of a nurse, he is going to find out exactly what we do............and can do.
Adn I am sure that he is going to require the services at some time or another................
What goes 'round, comes 'round.......I hope he never needs inpt care, 'cause he gonna be in deep doo-doo when the staff hears his name......
I recently looked into leaving nursing to become an accountant but I simply couldn't afford or justify the tremendous pay cut (I knew it would be drastic because one of my coworkers left nursing for accounting 5 years ago. Although her pay has increased quite a bit from where she started out right after getting her accounting degree, she STILL hasn't reached her former nursing salary as an accountant - she says it was worth it though because if she made a mistake as an accountant, noone was going to die from it - way different from nursing). Someone should tell this guy that jealousy is a really ugly and pathetic thing.
Canadian nurses don't need to pass NCLX to practice in Canada. I hope this is a typo, because it's the kind of error, people pounce on and run with. "See, nurses don't even know what exams they have to write in order to practice as a professional"
Thanks for pointing that out Fiona! I figured we all wrote the same exam because in my school bookstore we have books to prepare for the NCLEX and I've never heard anyone at school talk about it.. it's just known as the "licensing exam".. but I did look it up, and emailed my correction to the editor.
I checked in on the edmonton sun webpage today to see if there have been any replies to T.A Ball's statements about nurses and this is what I found:
RE: OCT. 29 letter. I oppose Carol Carbol's labelling of nurses as professionals. Nursing should not be awarded the same status as a true profession such as law, accounting, medicine or dentistry. A true professional performs highly complex tasks and demonstrates a high level of judgment. Nurses must follow policy and procedure and make low-level operational decisions. As an accountant, I am insulted that a nurse would believe they are my equal.
Ivan Miller (Don't get sick.)
Isn't that ridiculous? People just don't seem to understand what nurses really do, and the level of knowledge you need to become a nurse. Since I was a young girl I have always admired nurses and thought they were incredibly smart. Being a student nurse, I realize how much I need to understand before I graduate and looking at all you nurses on this forum, I think you are some of the most amazing people in the world with so much to offer and we ARE professionals. If we weren't I wouldnt have received a "credit line for professional students" to get through school. Anyway, just wondering what u guys thought about this. I didn't realize people could be so ignorant.
Since there is no way to tell who is an ADN vs BSN, and we all sit the same boards (in the U.S., anyway), there is no reason for all nurses (RNs and LVNs) to not be considered professionals.
snowfreeze, BSN, RN
948 Posts
Arrogance never impressed me and never really got my attention. Chill everyone as this really is not an issue to anyone but the bloke who wrote it.