Why do minorities have more respect for nurses?

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I have been a nurse for over 20 years. I currently work in Miami. The hospital is in an area where we get a lot of Cuban and Haitian patients. I have been at this hospital for 6 years. The patients and families we get are so very respectful of nurses. I know this is a sensitive subject but I'm just stating my experience. I am white myself and receive far less respect from white pts and families like I do minorities. Before working in this area of Miami, I worked in white areas of south Florida like Orlando,Del Rey, Boca Raton and West Palm beach. It was a nightmare working there as the pts and families(mostly white)had Zero respect for the nurses. I took more verbal abuse working in white areas of Florida than when i was in the Army! Why are minorities more respectful of nurses than white people? Overall from my experience white people simply don't respect nurses like minorities!

Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

I've had kind, appreciative, demanding, rude, dramatic, and polite patients from all backgrounds and walks of life. Although certainly I think cultural background can influence how patients and families interact with healthcare workers (for instance, whether they view us with trust or suspicion, and whether they see us as authority figures or subordinates), most of it seems to come down to individual personalities and situations.

Some people react to the fear and loss of control of being a patient by become polite and hypercompliant, some by becoming demanding and aggressive.

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Well, you're right, I certainly would not do that. Your post just got me thinking.

I'm proud to be a nurse, and I feel it was a rigorous course of study. But I have to admit there are others which might be significantly more difficult. Don't know if pre-law is one of them as I have no experience with it. But no, bad manners on her part for sure. Did you point that out to her?

I did not. It really wouldn't have been worth it. She seemed like such a superficial person anyway, I'm sure she would have been thinking about what cocktail she was going to order next instead of listening to me drone on and on about maid service--I mean nursing. :sarcastic:

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Specializes in ER.

I haven't observed this phenomenon. I do find Mexicans from Mexico to be respectful. American Hispanics, OTOH, seem just as entitled as any other American.

I just started a new job in a more middle class area that is mainly white, and I find the patients and their families very appreciative. But, this isn't the same as S Florida, with a bunch of well off north easteners retiring.

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You get more respect because these people have not yet caught the disease of entitlement that too many people have. Nursing is still considered an important and respected profession in most of those cultures.

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Specializes in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

It depends. I think the people who understand the least about what nurses do are the rudest, especially when working from the old-school, maidservant mentality.

My experience is that the patients that are the most grateful/respectful are the ones who are struggling with their condition and are embarrassed about the positions it puts them in (i.e. needing help with toileting and bathing). The ones who are the least grateful/respectful are the ones who see me, their RNs, their docs and anyone else involved with them while in the hospital as obstacles to them getting back home and getting back to their non-compliant norm. Granted, these patients are on a spectrum with the former becoming like the later and the later the former, especially when they get extra confused at night.

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Specializes in ICU/PACU.

I hate generalizations like these. Makes my stomach turn a little bit.

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I'll throw out an observation I've made that isn't race or ethnicity-related, but does also make note of a different impression made by a specific population. I work with our country's military Veterans, and have noticed that by-and-large, the respect offered to nursing staff....and THANKS and APPRECIATION expressed....go far above anything I ever experienced working in the general population. I also notice that the older the Vet, the more likely I am to be randomly thanked in an elevator or the hallway....those who have experienced being considered "less than" by virtue of being foot soldiers, etc often have the greatest appreciation for those who are there to serve them now. It's an honor, IMHO, to serve them in this capacity....and I NEVER take for granted their thanks!

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.

Add me to the "it depends" category...

At least with my travels in this business, there have been "less" than ideal in terms of respecting nurses; however, I worked in areas where people have a sense of upheaval and/or loss of control (Acute Rehab, Home Health, LTC, Post-Acute, PICU, PediER) so maybe the attempt for control across culture and class that I have witnessed is been a case-by-case basis, with no one having a corner on rudeness nor niceties.

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I have been a nurse for over 20 years. I currently work in Miami. The hospital is in an area where we get a lot of Cuban and Haitian patients. I have been at this hospital for 6 years. The patients and families we get are so very respectful of nurses. I know this is a sensitive subject but I'm just stating my experience. I am white myself and receive far less respect from white pts and families like I do minorities. Before working in this area of Miami, I worked in white areas of south Florida like Orlando,Del Rey, Boca Raton and West Palm beach. It was a nightmare working there as the pts and families(mostly white)had Zero respect for the nurses. I took more verbal abuse working in white areas of Florida than when i was in the Army! Why are minorities more respectful of nurses than white people? Overall from my experience white people simply don't respect nurses like minorities!

The hospital is in an area where we get a lot of Cuban and Haitian patients.

Those aren't considered minorities or please use a better term which is people of color. What you're talking about are foreigners and common sense should tell you these people were mainly not born here so of course many may have a little more respect because they are super poor and not used to medical care. I think the cubans are though and some could be scared of receiving medical attention since many of them are not citizens.

This post is very biased, we all have our own experiences depending where we work and I bet you if you were in certain cities where people of color who may happen to live in lower class neighborhoods since many people of color also live in (middle to upper class neighborhoods) you would not be singing the same tune.

Remember you have encountered many foreigners not necessarily people of color born in the U.S.

Remember there is good and bad in every race, culture, religion, citizen/non citizen please don't generalize like that especially because where you work is around many foreigners not in the lower income neighborhoods where you have to watch your back to make sure you are not a victim of a gun shot, gang activity etc.

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I think you've hit the nail on the head. I once told a rich-daddy-pays-for-everything pre-law student that I was studying nursing, and her immediate response was, "Oh that's nice. But you don't have to take a hard test like I do at the end." She had no clue what the NCLEX was. When I enlightened her, she replied, "Well, I'm sure it's still not as hard as what I'll have to do."

Some people are ignorant and entitled.

With all due respect although the NCLEX was hard, it wasn't that hard for me actually and I would have been surprised if I didn't pass. Actually I'm surprised many of my classmates passed. With that said, the bar is one of the most intense exams period.

California administers what is widely considered one of the nation's most difficult bar examinations twice each year, in February and July. The California Bar Examination consists of 18 hours of examination time, spread out over three days. The only state with a longer exam is Louisiana, at 21 hours. California's exam is administered in the following manner:

  • 1st day (Tuesday): 3 essay questions (9 am – 12 pm); 1 performance test (2 pm – 5 pm)
  • 2nd day (Wednesday): 100 Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) questions (9 am – 12 pm); 100 MBE questions (2 pm – 5 pm)
  • 3rd day (Thursday): 3 essay questions (9 am – 12 pm); 1 performance test (2 pm – 5 pm)

The exam currently tests 17 different subject areas:

  • Constitutional Law (Federal)
  • Contracts (Common Law and Uniform Commercial Code)
  • Criminal Law and Procedure
  • Evidence (Federal Rules of Evidence and the California Evidence Code)
  • Real Property
  • Torts
  • Wills (California law)
  • Trusts
  • Civil Procedure (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the California Code of Civil Procedure)
  • Community Property (California law)
  • Professional Responsibility (California law and the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct)
  • Business Associations (Corporations, Agency, all forms of Partnerships, and Limited Liability Entities)
  • Remedies

The essay section of the exam accounts for 39 percent of the total score. Applicants sitting for the California Bar Examination do not know which of the 17 subjects will be tested on the essay portion of the examination. In recent years, it has become common for the exam to feature one or more "crossover" questions, which test applicants in multiple subjects. Examples of past-tested essays with sample answers are available on the California State Bar's website atPast Exams.

California-specific legal knowledge is required only for Evidence, Civil Procedure, Wills, Community Property, and Professional Responsibility; for the other topics, either general common law ("bar exam law") or the federal laws apply. Beginning in July 2007, applicants may be tested on the California Evidence Code and the California Code of Civil Procedure in the essay portion of the exam in addition to the Federal Rules of Evidence and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Applicants traditionally wrote essay responses with using pen and paper or typed them on a typewriter. However, since 2000, applicants have had the option of using SofTest software to type those portions on a laptop computers.

The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) portion of the exam is a nationally-administered, 200-question multiple-choice exam. As of February 2007, only 190 questions are scored, and the other 10 are unscored experimental questions used to gauge their appropriateness for future exams. The MBE covers only the topics of contracts (including sales of goods under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code), real property, torts, constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, and the Federal Rules of Evidence. While the essay section of the exam may test one or more of these areas as well, the MBE section is dedicated to these subjects. The MBE counts for 35 percent of the total score in California.

The performance test portion of the exam is designed to test practical lawyering skills by presenting applicants with simulations of actual legal tasks. This section counts for 26 percent of the total score. The performance exam is a "closed universe" setting, meaning that the only substantive information the applicant needs to know is provided during the exam. Even if cases and statutes are provided, they are often different from the real law in the area at issue, so that applicants who studied that area of law in law school will have no special advantage. Each performance test is worth as many points as two regular essays.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I don't get where OP is coming from, but I am trying. I just realized, after more than a year in my unit, that I am the only Caucasian American nurse on my unit. It's weird, because my now very dear friend/coworker who is Nigerian, pointed it out to me just last week.

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With all due respect although the NCLEX was hard, it wasn't that hard for me actually and I would have been surprised if I didn't pass. Actually I'm surprised many of my classmates passed. With that said, the bar is one of the most intense exams period.

California administers what is widely considered one of the nation's most difficult bar examinations ... ....

FWIW, I think the point being made regarding the bar exam was NOT to compare the difficulty of the exams to each other (and I don't know that California is even on the table...?). I believe the point being made was that the pre-law student (not yet even a law student?) was not-so-nicely informing the lowly nurse that SHE would have to endure a difficult exam in order to become a lawyer--unlike the nurse---and once she was corrected about the testing/licensing requirement, she continued to maintain that the nursing exam was likely no big deal anyway.

I think it's silly to compare exams in terms of difficulty, given how very subjective it is. After all, one person deems NCLEX to be a very difficult exam, another says how very easy it was. One person says the bar is nearly impossible to pass; my cousin was shocked at how easy it was for him. Viva le difference!

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