Should the Title Nurse be Changed ? ? ?

[CaLLaCoDe]

today i was chatting with another rn who believes that the term nurse for our title is outdated and may not fully represent our field as well as it used to. and perhaps the title nurse turns men off from persuing a nursing degree, way too feminine for a man to own. not to say that we don't nurse patients back to health and nurse our drinks while griping about work, however we're not all nursing babies either!

what are your ideas concerning this topic? do you have any suggestions as to a better term for us nurses other than nurse?

i think direct care provider as a title could curb our patient/resident/client's appetite from calling out "nurse!" as if it were a curse word.

[fgoff]

I always liked Patient Care Engineer!

[time4meRN]

direct care provider sounds like a hospital consierge instead of someone who knows about patho phys, pharm a&p etc. there are a lot of people who don't know what nurses do , including many dr's, but then i don't know what a aircraft controller or an auto mechanic really does either. i think we worry too much about "making " people understand what we do. as long as we are doing our job, outcomes improve and we are respected by the instutions we work for (including the bon's), then we don't need to spin our wheels making eveyone aware of what we do. aircraft mechanics can tell me all they want how important they are, how hard their job is , but, truly , i don't care. i just want the aircraft to stay in the air like it's suposed to. medicine is the same for the average person.