Why Are Nurses Given Such A Bad Rap Today?

Could you define "bad rap" a little better?

I'm not sure I understand the term. The only person who I'm sure has given nurses a bad rap lately is Schwarzenegger.

i am starting nursing school next month, and i have had an overwhelmingly positive response from friends, family, etc....and i'm a guy!!

atleast in the northeast(i'm in philly); nurses are highly respected professionals.

it is extremely common to hear people say they would rather see a nurse than a doctor, and to hear that many nurses these days KNOW more than the doctors.

schwartsnegger is moron and frankly, california deserves what its getting in my east coast opinion.

I didn't know we were getting a bad rap. Whose giving us a bad rap?

Yes...I'm not sure what you mean by that either. Most people I know seem to hold nurses in high regard, but those same people would agree that they themselves could NEVER be nurses. I think the profession of NURSING has been given a bad rap but not so much NURSES themselves. Does that make sense? Probably not, sorry not great with words.

The general public needs to be educated on what the nursing profession actually does. Most equate it with handholding, buttwiping, diva docs, and long hours that pretty much anyone could do but won't put up with. What I'm trying to say is that I think most people admire nurses themselves but the nursing profession does not get the respect it deserves. The average person has no idea the knowlege and expertise that a nurse actaully must have. It's more than just following Dr. orders and holding hands. I hope this make sense. I'm tired.

That is the only kind of "bad rap" I can think of. When people find out I'm a nurse I have never gotten a bad reaction. Just the normal "Wow, I could never do what you do." but I don't necessarily see that as a negative reaction (or really a positive).

Yes...I'm not sure what you mean by that either. Most people I know seem to hold nurses in high regard, but those same people would agree that they themselves could NEVER be nurses. I think the profession of NURSING has been given a bad rap but not so much NURSES themselves. Does that make sense? Probably not, sorry not great with words.

The general public needs to be educated on what the nursing profession actually does. Most equate it with handholding, buttwiping, diva docs, and long hours that pretty much anyone could do but won't put up with. What I'm trying to say is that I think most people admire nurses themselves but the nursing profession does not get the respect it deserves. The average person has no idea the knowlege and expertise that a nurse actaully must have. It's more than just following Dr. orders and holding hands. I hope this make sense. I'm tired.

That is the only kind of "bad rap" I can think of. When people find out I'm a nurse I have never gotten a bad reaction. Just the normal "Wow, I could never do what you do." but I don't necessarily see that as a negative reaction (or really a positive).

Your thoughts match what I was really referring to. I apologize for not being able to express these thoughts better when starting the thread. Thanks for posting! :)

I've been talking to a lot of people who work healthcare over the past two weeks when I'm out and about job hunting, and I've met a few nurses who work in non-nursing jobs (retail for example) because of their belief that nurses are not being respected............thus...what I termed "bad rap"...sorry to confuse anyone. :uhoh21:

Then, when I read the threads that are specific to the nursing profession in regards to how we are being portrayed in the media, the news, the movies, and so forth........this made me think of the "bad rap" term I used.

That's it in a nutshell. :)

In another thread a poster shared his sociology professors referred to nursing as a 'pink collar ghetto.' This term this illustrates pretty well the 'bad rap' nurses get. (I'm stilla bit in shock over that term personally.)

So...its gotten to the college professors...who teach our kids...who would want to enter a 'pink collar ghetto' if they had a choice?

I know things are pretty bad in nursing today...but do we deserve this? :stone

In another thread a poster shared his sociology professors referred to nursing as a 'pink collar ghetto.' This term this illustrates pretty well the 'bad rap' nurses get. (I'm stilla bit in shock over that term personally.)

So...its gotten to the college professors...who teach our kids...who would want to enter a 'pink collar ghetto' if they had a choice?

I know things are pretty bad in nursing today...but do we deserve this? :stone

Wow... that's appalling. Truly. :stone

Wow! I'd never heard that term before mattsmom! "pink collar ghetto"??? That's not nice to teach the kids.

Sometimes I'm privy to conversations by others who talk badly about the treatment their loved ones got or didn't get while patients in a hospital. They always mention how "the nurse" didn't do right by their loved one....too slow getting the pain meds, not bathing their loved one in time...making them wait to be fed....not informing them of test results or discharging them in time when the doctor clearly said they could go NOW. These are things that give us a "bad rap" if you will, and it isn't even our fault.

I once had a patient whose doctor discharged him at 0800 in the morning. That patient hunted me down in another patients room to tell me he was meeting friends for lunch and a golf game, so could I give him his walking papers so he could be on his way. He was totally dressed with bags in hand, too. Never mind that the patient I was with was having difficulty breathing and in great pain. The man didn't get to leave when he wanted to leave because he was not my only concern of the morning. Golf game versus pain and respiratory distress? To the patients.....both were important. To the nurse.....we have to pick and choose based on priority and not on leisurely activities that a discharged patient must get to.

It's when patients are discharged that they give us a bad rap when we don't respond johnny-on-the-spot for them. So not fair to not understand the complexity of sick people vs. well people. :stone I'm always hearing stories from people about how their nurse wasn't this or that for them during their hospitalization. These stories spread from person to person like a virus, and that gives a bad rap to us as nurses.

I thought the "pink collar ghetto" remark was originally made at one of the student doctor sites?

hi,

this is my first posting here so be gentle please :chuckle when i first started nursing (1970) i was told by my brother that i was committing intellectual suicide. now, of course, he realizes what a pompous ^%$#& he was and has since apologised profusely. remember also that at that time nursing education in oz was still in the apprenticeship model (ie in the hospitals). with its transfer into the tertiary sector - nursing began to gain a better academic reputation.

but now the debate continues to rage (albeit less intensely) about how academic educated nurses aren't prepared as well "practically" as their former compatriots. and that is often taken over into the press - it always sells good copy. so in some way that is still causing nursing to be questioned more.

i think that generally "society" (however you perceive it to be) views nursing positively, we are always in the top 3 as the most trusted and respected professions.

however, that cannot be said imho from other strata in our society. i think that we get a "bad rap" in two ways from my experience.

firstly, i believe that other academic disciplines still perceive us as not being acdemically rigorous enough and the "poor relation'. let me give you an example from the institution where i work. in oz, all universities have to meet a specific envelope of enrolments (a quota), if they do not meet that quota their funding gets cut. so if you under enrol in one discipline, you over enrol in another. the more students in one discipline means that the ter (tertiary admitting rating or score) is lowered. which some people equate with "dumber students" ie medicine has a higher ter. this happened in my university this year, and where did they top up their numbers - nursing. so instead of 210 students we enrolled 420. never mind that we didn't have staff or classes timetabled or that we didn't have a lecture theatre that takes that number of students. nor, might i add, did they consult with us about this. imho this shows a complete lack of professional courtesy and respect.

secondly i don't think we get a lot of respect from our employers which in oz are mainly the federal & state governments . we are all aware of the burnout rate in nursing, yet we consistently have fewer employed nurses with a workload that is literally back breaking. it's all done in the name of economic rationalism but it seems the $ is mightier than the desire for good quality nursing care.

finally just like some gays suffer from "internalised homophobia", i think that many nurses suffer from "internalised nurse phobia". how many times have you said or heard said "i'm just a nurse". there is no "just" about it, you worked long and hard to get where you are & should be proud of it. then of course there is the idea that "if you are that intelligent, why aren't you a doctor" i rest my case. sorry about the rave, as you can see, i feel pretty strongly about this

cheers,

aellyssa

Aellyssa, great post! Please continue to share!

Renee, I think I understand what you're saying. It's kind of a mixed view out there about us. I know there are people that think bad about nurses, and get angry at the care their loved ones get, as well us internalizing some of that negativity.

Then again, people are lined up at nursing schools waiting years, jumping through hoops to become a nurse. People send nurses cards, thank you notes, give candy, call them "angels", etc. A poll once again said nurses are the most trustworthy of profressions.

Go figure.

i was curious about the term "pink collar ghetto" which i'd never heard before mattsmom mentioned it in her post comments, so i researched the term and found many articles about it....especially the one posted here. note: the one about nursing i highlighted in "red":

geek women in bondage

the new pink collar ghetto

[color=#0000c4]annalee newitz, special to sf gate

thursday, august 5, 1999

san francisco, california, usa -- "how many times must you be told?

there's nowhere that we won't go!"

-- lyrics written by the all-female san francisco band l7

a woman who spoke to me anonymously recounted what could be the story of everywoman in the tech industry. when she was hired at silicon graphics, a woman in the human resources department was unusually frank with her about her job prospects. "basically, she laid out two career paths for me, one that went to lead engineer and one that went to management. she told me openly that i might as well kiss the engineering path goodbye because it was so full of boys."

everyone in the industry knows that boardrooms and tech conferences are still packed with testosterone. yet it would be untrue to say that the bay area high-tech scene is entirely male-dominated. crucial professions -- project management, ui design, web production, pr, marketing, human resources -- boast more than their fair share of women in positions of power.

jobs in these areas can be just as lucrative as typically "male" jobs (such as anything on the cto path), but when women are overrepresented in certain areas and underrepresented in others, something is obviously going on. it's called ghettoization: a situation where a group exists within restricted boundaries that its members cannot easily surmount. in the high tech industry, we're witnessing the entrenchment of a new pink collar ghetto.

certain professions like nursing, day care and secretarial work have long been known as pink collar ghettos. the excuse in the past for putting women in these boring or low-paid positions is that they are allegedly "better" at caregiving and organizing groups. such reasoning would be rejected these days as patently sexist. but while no one bats an eye at a man who takes a job in a "female" field like human resources, many are still shocked and uncomfortable when women become ceos or software jocks.

a woman discussing carly fiorina's recent appointment to ceo of hewlett-packard on the [color=#0000c4]san francisco women on the web's email list, wrote, "what really annoys me is that it makes the front page when a major corporation hires a woman." she added sardonically, "my god a woman!?!? what will they think of next?"

while female execs may get lionized by the press, it's not always easy for women to seek out fields where they may be one of a tiny handful of women in the office. "you have to be a certain kind of person to break out, to go someplace where there aren't a whole lot of people like you," says kathleen o'brian, point woman for sfwow and a lead developer and trainer for sbc internet services.

o'brian confirms that the basic conundrum of female employment in high tech is some areas are gender balanced while others are female free. "there are a lot of women in the training field because women have traditionally been teachers," she said, "but when you get into more technical training you're still competing mostly with men."

denise brosseau, president of the [color=#0000c4]forum for women entrepreneurs, agrees. "we see a lot of women in e-commerce, marketing, content production, human resources," she said, "women are supposed to be good at partnership and collaboration, which is what those jobs are about."

brosseau's comments echo the idea that all women share certain characteristics that make them better suited for "intuitive" or "communicative" jobs, while men are better at those that are "logical" and "scientific."

what's galling for women who seek equal representation is that it's hard to deny that a lot more women seem to want to do things like design rather than engineering. widespread rumor even has it that apple guru steve jobs hired susan kare to do icon design for the mac computer because he believed only a woman could create a truly intuitive interface.

can it really be possible that geek women are from gui and geek men are from engineering?

absolutely not, says kare, whose "female intuition" supposedly made the mac friendly. "user interface design involves collaboration between programmers focused on user interface and designers of user interface graphics, and i have worked with highly skilled men and women in both capacities," asserted kare, now a successful ui design consultant in san francisco.

and the rumors about jobs needing a woman to make his gui go? "i came to work at apple by hearing about the job and interviewing with the macintosh software manager at that time," she stated firmly. "there is no truth to that rumor."

if it's untrue that women are naturally better at some jobs, then how do we account for all the women who choose of their own free will to steer clear of engineering and populate creative or pr departments instead? it's not as if this unequal distribution of labor is making women happy.

san francisco tech reporter rose aguilar commented, "personally, i'm sick of asking female pr execs to interview men for the majority of my stories, listening to all male tech panels, and seeing the same men in brochures for tech events." women long to see themselves represented in high tech jobs, and yet an ironically tiny number of them actually pursue professions in male-dominated fields.

so why do women find themselves attracted to stereotypically "feminine" professions? o'brian offers the simple observation that women choose jobs that have more female role models. it's a catch-22: women want tech jobs in gender-balanced departments, but the only way to create a gender balance is to work for years in a male-dominated space.

"we as a society don't like to look at the fact that women aren't encouraged [in the tech industry], that there isn't equality," o'brian said. "it's still tough for women to get that break, to make those choices."

according to willa seldon, general partner of [color=#0000c4]viridian capital, the answer for women in high tech is learning how to gain power by networking. "sometimes it's hard for women to stand up and talk out loud at meetings the way men do. but it's crucial," seldon remarked.

viridian, which seldon runs with founding partner christine cordaro, is a venture capital firm that invests in companies owned by women or whose products are aimed primarily at women -- it's one of dozens of companies and organizations in the bay area that are laying the foundation for a future old girls' network.

perhaps we should stop asking what kinds of jobs women are good at, for we can be good at anything. instead we should wonder about the limited choices for women in the tech industry.

the more women can see themselves and each other making the tough choices, breaking into historically male fields, the more likely it is that the next generation of women will choose the jobs they desire, instead of the jobs they think they can get.

annalee newitz is a freelance writer in san francisco. it won't cost you anything to write and give her your opinions at [color=#0000c4][email protected].