"Nurses are not professionals"

[wannabesedated]

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 link:

http://www.edmontonsun.ca/Comment/Letters/2006/11/07/2264780.html

[npmaui]

That was an extremely ignorant letter on Mr. Miller's part. As many people have said, he does not understand the technical level of care that nurses provide in many specialties. Perhaps one day, he will be in the hospital requiring critical care, and that point, he might see the ignorance of his statement.

I used to be in the accounting world myself, so I feel at liberty to fire back at Mr. Miller's statements. I won't stoop down to Mr. Miller's level and disparage accountants or poke fun at them. I see the level of training in nursing at an equally high level, if not even higher. Furthermore, nurses are called upon to refine their skills for their whole careers. Someone also needs to point out to Mr. Miller that we are more often than not dealing in issues of life and death, bodily harm, etc. THAT WAS SOMETHING THAT I NEVER WORRIED ABOUT AS A PERSON IN THE ACCOUNTING WORLD. I'm sure his biggest worry is month end close or an upcoming audit. Trust me, those are not life altering events. I can honestly say that it is an honor to work in the field of nursing, and I can say I am glad I had come into this field.

***please feel free to post my reply in whatever publication he wrote his letter to.***

[BSNtobe2009]

People might flame me for my following response, but here it is. :)

In academia, an associate's degree does not carry much value. Moreover, diplomas do not carry much weight. We worked vigorously for our diplomas and ADNs, but other college graduates laugh them off.

Nurses are still considered "blue-collar" or "high proletariat" in many social class structures because of the hourly pay rates, high volume of manual hands-on work, wearing of uniforms, pink collar origins, and lower educational attainment when compared to other professionals. In addition, many nurses behave unprofessionally when they disrespect each other. Others will never come to fully respect us if we don't treat each other with the utmost respect.

We all worked extraordinarily hard for our nursing educations. Some of us who earned liberal arts and humanities degrees before entering the medical field would readily agree that RN programs possess substantially higher levels of difficulty than other college majors. However, there are reasons why many people do not regard nurses as professionals.

This is merely my $0.02 on the issue.

I don't think a degree makes you a professional, or lack thereof. I think it's the type of work you do and at what level.

[DaFreak71]

AshleyDawn, I emailed the editor. Let me know if my letter prints, full of sarcastic remarks and ends in ...."smiling represses the gag reflux, but don't smile Mr Ball when you're cleaning up explosive diarrhea. I want to see you lose your lunch that you ate while standing up."

First off, it's not my intention to single this poster out, I merely would like to make a point.

I find it somewhat ironic that the very people who are up in arms about their professional status resort to sarcastic comments meant for publication and others who have made veiled threats about the future care this person would receive. In my opinion, this is the very core of unprofessional behavior and attitudes.

Professionalism is an attitude. You don't need the entire public to consider you to be a professional in order to do a professional job. Most people would not consider cleaning up diarrhea to be professional, but there's a sloppy way to do it and a professional way to handle it. Professionals also do not allow uninformed people to define them or make them angry enough to retaliate with the very behavior they are protesting.

edited to correct spelling error

[ohiorn_78]

Okay, just a little FYI. My boyfriend has two Bachelor degrees and one is in marketing. He bore witness to my endless studying for three straight years. He constantly boasts to his friends and family how I'm the smartest person he knows. He knows first hand that nurses utilize high level skills and plenty of critical thinking. I printed these letters off to show my co-workers at my step down unit. I'm sure everyone will get a good guffaw out of this idiot's narrow, close-mindedness.