Imagine a hospital in which all nurses and doctors exhibit professionalism, beauty, splendor, and awe among colleagues and patients. A place where the people taking care of you appear greater than human, larger than life, infallible figures, portraying an image that captures total trust and total confidence from those nearby. What a wonderful place that would be. But alas, we have work ahead of us.
This thread is designed to discuss the importance of impressions in nursing. While many nurses take pride in appearing beautiful or handsome, many walk in to work with a case of the feck-its when it comes to appearance. Unfortunately I feel that nurses are much worse than doctors in this arena. Where I work the majority of female doctors wear their hair down, liberally apply makeup, wear form fitting clothing, and hard soled shoes. They try to appear as beautiful as they can. Likewise, the male doctors come in with tailored clothing that had been ironed, they have well-oiled hair, nice watches, and other things reminiscent of the show "General Hospital."
Meanwhile, in the ICU I've worked in, we've got a female nurse with a buzz cut, one woman wearing a pirate-like black eye patch, nurses with baggy wrinkled scrubs, nurses wearing those ugly skechers shapeups, everyone wearing their hair up or back in a plain boring pony tail instead of letting it flow, men or even women with untrimmed or unneatly trimmed facial hair and people exhibiting other drab or and in my humble opinion, embarrassing features. I feel like no other college educated profession dresses down as much as nurses do and it bothers me.
What do you think of nurses and the images they portray in the professional setting? Use this thread to talk about what you like or dislike, what you think should change and what shouldn't.
After reading all of these replies to the original posting I am disgusted at how judgmental the majority of you guys are. I am seriously SO sick of the attitude nurses have.
The OP just asked for an opinion on why it is that nurses seem to dress down compared to other professions. The answer is because we are skilled health care professionals, we aren't judged on our appearance. It's a perk of the job that we don't have to wear make up, do our hair or nails, ect to be accepted. We all have our days we are exhausted working our 5th 12 hour shift in one week no one is really worried about being done up. But that doesn't mean you can't wear makeup when you feel like it. I see so many of you saying "omg always must wear your hair up" and "nothing unnatural on your nails".
Ok firstly I'm a RN not a nun. I have nights I wear my shoulder length hair down and if I have to put it up to clean a patient or change a dressing or do a bedside procedure I do so. I don't keep it up all the time bc my scalp is sensitive and it gives me a headache. Wearing it loose doesn't work bc my hair is fine and it falls out. Sometimes I wear no make up and sometimes I wear foundation, eye makeup, blush, and a highlighter. As far as nails go I paint the **** out of my natural nails with every glitter/gel polish I want and I don't really care bc there's never a time where I'm not wearing gloves while I'm touching a patient. Either way it doesn't make me any less capable of taking care of my patients [emoji136]������[emoji168][emoji140]������[emoji182] and if you are wearing make up that's "melting off" your face then stop buying the ****** foundation sold at Walgreens and you won't have that problem anymore
Bold is mine.
Wow, talk about judgmental. First, in which post did anyone say you "can't wear makeup if you if you feel like it"? It's one thing to say you like to wear makeup to work (several of us have said we do). It's another thing altogether for the OP to wag his finger at nurses who choose not to.
Secondly, as to your smug and snarky remark about the quality of makeup: work in the OR for 12 hours with a mask on your face. Unless you are wearing pancake makeup more suitable to a movie set, that's not a fair statement. I don't care how much you spend on your makeup, it won't be there when you are done.
Student Doctor Network (I think). It's a forum for hopeful physicians. I've not really visited but I understand they are often in a rude and nurse bashing mood. Odd, since most physicians I've encountered have been very respectful. Med school and residency must be awfully humbling for some of them.
Anyway, some of their members enjoy coming here to cause trouble.
It some aspects you are right, I dont like seeing my fellow nurses thongs and butt crack. I also dont think avoiding make up is an issue. Seriously, how many timed have you see a doctor sweat? They dont if all the do is resd charts and talk with family. They can look like a princess. However if they are doing manual labor. Then I guarentee they dont glisten.
Reading these kinds of posts really is an interesting human personality study. I personally can't relate to OP's opinion at all. Also, the language and sentence structure have the tone of someone highly educated who considers theirselves elevated in some way. The OP even states in the first paragraph their ideas of professional appearance:
... which brings to mind the concepts of illusions of grandiosity and traces of narcissism. If the OP can part their ego for a moment, a perception check might be in order.
I have no such grandiose illusions. I'm a regular staff nurse in a cardiothoracic ICU. I'm in my late 20s. I don't consider myself to be either extraordinary or terrible. I do my job as best as I can, which varies depending on my mood and energy level on any given day. I'm also a recovering addict and alcoholic in a monitoring program. Does this sound glamorous to you?
Student Doctor Network (I think). It's a forum for hopeful physicians. I've not really visited but I understand they are often in a rude and nurse bashing mood. Odd, since most physicians I've encountered have been very respectful. Med school and residency must be awfully humbling for some of them.
Anyway, some of their members enjoy coming here to cause trouble.
I've also found this to be true. When I worked for a University Medical Center I often noted that there was a pretty horrible pecking order among the medical side of things. They managed to take eager med students and run them into the ground with their schedules with as many humbling if not humiliating confrontations along the way.
My most recent exposure to residents at a community hospital was very enjoyable. Of course they were FP and DO residents which are a very different personality type (generally speaking) than other specialties. As a side note we were all wearing the hospital issue scrubs, which by the way are never ironed, and the residents had very short and/or tied up hair. Birth is a messy department....no flowing hair there.
I have no such grandiose illusions. I'm a regular staff nurse in a cardiothoracic ICU. I'm in my late 20s. I don't consider myself to be either extraordinary or terrible. I do my job as best as I can, which varies depending on my mood and energy level on any given day. I'm also a recovering addict and alcoholic in a monitoring program. Does this sound glamorous to you?
It works if you work it, so work it, you're worth it!
I find no make up looks a little bit better at the end of 13 hours than racoon eyes do.
....Gee whiz and I have even bought the stuff from a high end specialty store!! Is there a makeup that has been tested whilst wearing isolation attire?
And speaking of isolation attire, does it have to be pastel colors? I mean REALLY makes me look sallow. Can't we have bright colors? I mean really, what are they trying to do to us? Make us look unprofessional?!?!?!?!
RegisteredNuisance, RN
29 Posts
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