Years ago when I first became a nurse I was so proud to be called a 'nurse' I would have shouted it across the roof tops. The reason I came into nursing is very old fashioned and you are now criticized for wanting to help people and care.
Today if you admit you are a RN who came into nursing because you care about people and want to help them it is almost like you are blaspheming.
I read that only nurses who came into the profession for financial and career reasons, or because they lost their first job and have decided nurses is the career for them are the ones who succeed in the profession.
I don't believe it is true I think there is a place for both kinds of nurses, I also don't believe the ones who don't care are the most successful.
In my company you wouldn't get far up the ladder if you said you were in nursing because you are a career RN and that you don't really care about the patient. You have to really want to be a nurse to succeed and it becomes very obvious when you don't care about the patient or want to do the right thing
It is old fashioned to say why I came into nursing 24 years ago, although I didn't come into the profession initially as a career, I have had one heck of a career and have managed to climb the ladder to a dizzy height!
So for all those RN's out there who are frightened to say they came into nursing for reasons of caring or helping people-stand tall and be counted!
This post surprises me....I feel like ive seen the opposite. I'm not a "carer"; I am one of the ones that chose nursing because science and diseases and job security. And for a long time I felt like I shouldn't admit THAT. I see posts online, here and elsewhere, that if you didn't get into nursing to HELP people and if you wouldn't do it even if you didnt get paid, you are doomed to burn out and fail at nursing.
Actually, I have found the opposite to be true. People are scolded for admitting they chose nursing for reasons that are less than altruistic. If I had a dime for every time someone stated they don't want THAT person to be his or her nurse, I could buy Bill Gates' house.
The fact is that it takes more than a kind heart to be a good nurse. I even read in a scrubs magazine that nurses who are there for a calling typically experience higher rates of burn out than those who came in for more practical reasons.
I think some people see a slider scale with Caring on one end and Pragmatism on the other. If you go too far to the Caring side you're a gooshy nurse with no practical sense of the realities of nursing and the Pragmatic nurses are just in it for the money/job security and don't have any emotional attachment to their patients.
I'm a hybrid and can slide it up pretty far on both scales.
I take offense when the argument becomes "my caring beats your pragmatism".
I agree with OP that "there is a place for both kinds of nurses"
In my experience the more distant, practical and careerist RNs were the most competent. I am not saying they were cold but they didn't gush compassion through the seams. They were decisive and efficient for the most while I have had many of the "calling" nurses come close to killing people. Sure there are exceptions for both sides.
I had this one RN I worked with who was kind of an a$$ but man he took care of his patients, was smart as a whip, always knew what was happening and didn't take any flak.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Why's it got to be "either/or"? I respect anyone's reasons for being a nurse, as mine were not completely altruistic, either. I guess I don't much care why you became a nurse, Madwife. As long as you are competent it works for me. And I am unsure why you are "afraid" to have your opinion.
Nursing IS a career for me. I do care about people, and always have but to me that is not why I'm a nurse. I literally cannot think of ONE person who I have worked with who has ever stated they don't care about the patients at all, and to me that would be an indication of a mental issue. Even people I know who are very career-oriented seem like they care at some level about the patient. So the whole idea of being scared to admit that a nurse cares about the patient seems silly to me and not a real issue.
I would care about other humans no matter what job I was in, and I think that is true about most people. I get a little testy at the idea that somehow nurses are superior and care more about people than other professions. On the peds BMT floor where I worked the maintenance guy was very close to the oncology kids. They adored him and he brightened their day. On a personal level he meant as much to them as the rest of the healthcare team. So from a caring perspective he was equal to the rest of us.
As someone else stated earlier (too lazy to go back and find it), there is a tone to some of these caring nurse threads that is hard to put a finger on, but something about them seems arrogant and really off-putting.
I feel like there's some unhealthy underlying dynamic with some of these declarations of being a "nurse who CARES!!" I can't put my finger on it though..
This is the quote I was referring to, and I agree with it.
Julius Seizure
1 Article; 2,282 Posts
This post surprises me....I feel like ive seen the opposite. I'm not a "carer"; I am one of the ones that chose nursing because science and diseases and job security. And for a long time I felt like I shouldn't admit THAT. I see posts online, here and elsewhere, that if you didn't get into nursing to HELP people and if you wouldn't do it even if you didnt get paid, you are doomed to burn out and fail at nursing.
Maybe we have been reading different threads.