Why Are Nurses Given Such A Bad Rap Today?

pricklypear · Apr 21, 2005

Hey..we may be a bedpan swingin morons, but at least we look good doing it!!!:beer:

live4today, RN · Apr 21, 2005

I am in nursing school right now, my first semster. At the begaining I wanted to quit, it was to much. But I have gotten the hang of it. I would not say it is hard, it is just a large amount of reading and studying. So much reading!!!!!!! Take good notes, read chapters if u have time to, (best to scan chapters) practice, practice,practice your skills. Study a little ever nite.

If it's what you really want (nursing), you'll get through it. Hang in there! :)

I remember taking my textbooks EVERYWHERE I went when I was in college. I took my books to bed with me, woke up with them surrounding me, ate with a book in my hands most times, even took my books on vacation with me (and actually DID study while vacationing, too). :)

Stay encouraged, and do the best you can do. :icon_hug:

nursemike, ASN, RN · Apr 21, 2005

I am in nursing school right now, my first semster. At the begaining I wanted to quit, it was to much. But I have gotten the hang of it. I would not say it is hard, it is just a large amount of reading and studying. So much reading!!!!!!! Take good notes, read chapters if u have time to, (best to scan chapters) practice, practice,practice your skills. Study a little ever nite.

Exactly. Most of the particular concepts aren't that hard to grasp, but the sheer volume can be overwhelming. I think most of my class has considered giving up at one time or another, but if you stick with it, you can get a difficult job for modest pay, little prestige, personal satisfaction and frustration, and the respect of those few who understand what you do. Sounds good to me.

Indy, LPN, LVN · Apr 21, 2005

First post on here, so please excuse my hopefully not too horrible use of words...

Add to that the "Dare to Care" - why would people not think we are a bunch of bedpan swinging Morons, trying to "land" a physician?

Pictures and images like that make it apparently so hard to understand what Nurses really do.

:rotfl: The visual that left me with almost had me choking with laughter. "Bedpan swinging" sounds like something the famed Nurse Ratched could do, and with one of those old metal ones too. I know I could swing a mighty bedpan if the need arose and I hadn't had my coffee yet.

-Indy

ValerieB · Apr 21, 2005

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 so agree with this one. My thought is, if the patient could be discharged at 0800, why couldn't he have been discharged the day before. Must have not been too sick. Why would he schedule a golf game when he's in the hospital? This stuff happens all the time. People forget that they aren't the only patient at the time and 0800 on any day is bad because it's right after report and you are making rounds and that's usually when you find the bad things going on with your "other" patients. I think most people that I take care of are understanding and cooperative and there are the ones that have no idea what is involved in a discharge. It's not just giving them there "walking papers". Remember, there's all that discharge teaching we have to do and "smoking cessation" advice we have to give them. Most of us know why we get a bad "rap" sometimes, but the people keep filling our beds because they know we're there to help them in there time of need. :rolleyes:

QMA_David · Apr 21, 2005

I've heard lay people, (usually really uneducated) say that Nurses were nothing more then waiters, there to fluff your pillow and massage your feet, some people out there have this "soap opera" idea of what Nursing is. They have no idea what Nurses make and the great traning involved.

TStewartfan · Apr 21, 2005

I am also a nursing student. I gave up my 17 year well paying paralegal job to go to nursing school. Don't let anyone tell you that its not hard, it is. I have two other degrees and have never ever studied as hard for classes as I do for nursing as well as doing the 8 hr+ clinicals every week. But I wouldn't change it for anything. My mother is amazed that I chose to go back and be a nurse, not amazed in a bad way, just that I waited so long!!! She's a hospital program RN. In fact most of my instructors are hospital trained RN's and if you ever have the chance to have them tell you stories about their days in training, listen, some of them are so funny.

The school I attend is very hard to get into. They only allow 80 students and the guidelines are extremely harsh. You have to do so many lab hours and do so many projects and we have at least one test or quiz a week in our subjects, sometimes more. I have pharmacology, nutrition and nursing this semester. At least semester might give me a break (I DOUBT IT) I have psych nursing and microbiology.

I had a patient in the hospital a couple of weeks ago who did nothing but complain about how lousy the hospital nurses were that they never did anything for him. He was so used to be waited on hand and foot that if you weren't in his room constantly, he complained. He was a sweet old gentleman but I agree with the person above who said that we as a society are spoiled. He was agitated with me because I had to leave and go give medications to my other patient. Yeah, I am just a student but that day I had two patients to take care of as well as getting pulled off the unit to go observe a LIVE (drum roll please, only had been practicing on manikins up until then!!) catheterization and then when I came back on the floor, they found someone who needed one and I got picked to give it!!!

Nurses are so overworked today, I can see that just on the one day a week I am at the hospital. The LPN who was on our floor just gets meds passed out in time to do accuchecks for lunch and then everything starts over again. The CNA does most of the hands on patient care, bathing, changing linens etc. and the RN is there for assistance when needed. Now, I have worked with some FANTASTIC RN's who bend over backwards to help you out but I came in contact with one last week who thought we were there to do whatever she wanted us to do. I had to tell her that we were just new we could only give certain medications and that anything that demanded us have an instructor nearby, would have to be done that way. She wasn't very happy about it but by the end of the day, I could go to her and discuss patient care and she wouldn't get huffy. I understand that she is stressed, heck who wouldn't be. Some days I wonder why I got into this field and then I realize that I love the hands on patient care. There are some people in my class that all they want to do is "push papers", well you know what, I realized that I pushed enough papers as a paralegal and I don't want to do that again (if I can absolutely help it). I love the hands on nursing care to my patients and that is what I enjoy.

Wish me well, next week begins finals.....

Jodi Levins

ISeeURN · Apr 21, 2005

Would these be empty bedpans? Because, if not, the moron thing might be a little hard to argue with.

Uh Oh..... I can see the s..t flying... :) Lets just hope they are indeed empty while in motion...

ISeeURN · Apr 21, 2005

In fact most of my instructors are hospital trained RN's and if you ever have the chance to have them tell you stories about their days in training, listen, some of them are so funny.

Many, many, wayyy too many years ago, when I went to Nursing School in Germany, an American friend of mine gave me a book called "A Nurse's Story" by Carol Gino.

It had quite a few anecdotes in it, which inspired me to start a magazine at our Nursing School, in which we told about our " mishaps" and " pranks" during clinicals.

We shared the magazine with anyone at the school, and the hospital staff. Not only did people get a lot of good laughs out of it, it also brought the hospital staff a little closer to the nursing students (good for the teaching and learning environment back then)...

I still have all my old copies, and still giggle when I pick one up and start reading... :)

vemiliob · Apr 23, 2005

This subject is getting far away than one could expect. Right now, I don't think Nurses are given such a bad Rap. We're getting better status. Probably we need more recognition yet. However, Doctors are suffering a lack of recognition in relation to past times. This phenomenon creates a certain balance on the public's point of view.

Nevertheless, we cannot compare ourselves with Medics. Different careers, different rolls, different functions, and shorter time training.

We are not medics, as though we are not better than medics....we are Nurses.... just Nurses....

:Melody: :Melody:

BETSRN · Apr 23, 2005

In reading the threads regarding the so called nursing shortage our country is under , I started wondering why is it that we as nurses are given such a bad rap today. Care to share your thoughts on this? :)

I am not sure we are getting a "bad rap", however, nurses (not all) do allow themselves to be treated with disrespect by physicians. BSN's ae not going to make us moreprofessional. How we handle ourselves is what is going to make the difference.

nursemike, ASN, RN · Apr 23, 2005

I am not sure we are getting a "bad rap", however, nurses (not all) do allow themselves to be treated with disrespect by physicians. BSN's ae not going to make us moreprofessional. How we handle ourselves is what is going to make the difference.

I saw a news story (sort of) on The Daily Show (sadly, fast becoming my most trusted source for news!) about a cleaning service for the dorms at Harvard. The fellows who started it (who were completely serious) insisted that their employees weren't "maids" (good, because the one they interviewed was a guy) but "cleaning professionals."

My point (finally, after numerous parenthetical asides) is that the term "professional" is so overused, these days, that I really don't think it has much meaning. Today, you are a professional if you get paid to do something--like playing football.

I'm not saying we shouldn't conduct ourselves in a professional manner, in the old sense of the word, or aspire to professional recognition--at least among the healthcare community--but I don't think it's worth obsessing over. As you say, how we handle ourselves is what will matter in the long run.

Some patients will always see us as maids and valets. The growing emphasis on "customer satisfaction" feeds that, to some extent, and yet it is an important goal. Somehow, we need to fluff pillows and sling bedpans and perform life-saving interventions with equal dignity. In the end, we are one of the most trusted professions, and maybe that's a good thing to keep in mind as we work on becoming one of the respected ones. Still, there will always be those who expect their surgeons to be on 24hr call to answer any little questions they might have. Respect can be hard to come by in our society, and sometimes we are going to have to make do with self-respect.