For being furious at DH telling DSD that my degree isn't a real degree?

[TooFarGone]

So DH is sat down with his DD taking about careers etc. He says to her "these days, you need a job that pays at least £20k a year but at the same time, you don't want to be stressing yourself out with difficult degrees and stuff. You want to enjoy your time at uni. That's why I think nursing would be ideal for you! you get to go to uni, you don't have to do a difficult degree and you get a well paid job at the end of it!".

So DSD says "But isn't a degree in nursing going to be just as difficult?" and he replied "no course not, they call it a degree but its not like a real degree".

I'm furious as I worked bloody hard to get my degree and he knows this. It isn't an "easy option" at all. I had it out with him and he apologised for upsetting me but still maintains that nursing is an easy alternative to doing a "real" degree.

And you make sure every child in your class has its every need attended to at all times do you? Check they are all hydrated properly?

Because you, as a nurse, should understand how difficult it is. And you, as a nurse, should also understand where the call-button is located. And you, as a nurse, should have taken their names and then reported them to senior management if it were that big an issue and you were as outraged as you purport to be. But no, you've decided to be twisted and bitter about the whole thing. Absolutely ridiculous.

And as you've stated: you were left for "hours" with no water. What?! I'm sorry?! HOURS?! How dare they. Absolutely shocking. How many hours? 2? 3?!

You really need to get over yourself at this point. I've been nice, but you just need to have a sharp smack from reality. You're lowering everyone's opinion of nurses just by contributing to the sexism and bigotry that the OP's husband believes in.

But this thread was about nurse education and degrees.

And please do not swear.

I am NOT sexist and I am NOT bigoted. And you, MummyTigger, have not been nice.

Well I've yet to see any doctors prescribe water. My dad spends a long time in hospital and when he's ill is often incapable of asking for water or anything. Well no not incapable, but he would find it a big effort to press the buzzer, talk, etc and would also cause him a lotof pain.

I've never seen water on his prescription.

However there is always water in his jug, his glass is full, with a straw in it and within reach. A tea lady comes round at regular intervals and offers hot drinks or juice. If he needed help to drink it then a nursing assistant will help him.

Of course, the nurses get the flak when the nursing assistants fail in their duties to provide water, the nurses are trained for 3 years (I think this is still case) and are deemed (rightly) to be better qualified. They should check that these things have been done.
See, this is the problem I have with nursing; they want to be deemed a profession (and what an honorable job it is -I don't deny it) but will not accept the professionalism comes with responsibility. Or at least in my experience this is the case.

I'd be a lot more furious at your DH for no encouraging your DD to aspire to a better paid job, even if it meant harder work at Uni. I'm not saying that a nursinf degree is easy (certainly more difficult than "media studies"- ffs), but let's be honest, if anursing deree was very, very difficult and cademic then it'd be a degree in medicine.

To make your DD settle for an average-pay (albeit noble) job when she's got her whole life in front of her seems very unjust.

Of course I've not been nice - you've been abusive towards me and towards a profession I have the utmost respect for. And my attempts at being nice were met with you screaming back at me - am I supposed to be all sunshine and daisies 100% of the time?

VivaLaBeaver that's exactly the points I've been trying to make. What happened to Wamster was an isolated incident, yet she continues to put down nursing as a whole.

I'm a firm believer in pursuing something you are passionate about, regardless of the career opportunities at the end of your course. Why do a course in something you can't stand just because it gives you a well-paid job that you're going to despise? There isn't much point in that to be honest with you.

Well, I don't think that that is entirely fair, pumpkincarver, a lot of people who do have the aptitude to do 'better' jobs leave good careers to be nurses; my ex-mil was educated in a 'hard' science at Cambridge and got a good degree and the petrochemical industry went into nursing. The ironic thing is that she really was a super nurse because she did it not out of having nothing else to do, but because she really cared for people. I'd have had water out of her I can tell you!

Oh I have accepted the responsibility of my job, Wamster. For 30 years I have accepted the fact that I owe every one of my patients a huge responsibility. I feel very honoured that patients have allowed me to look after them.

But with responsibility comes RIGHTS. The right to care for a patient in a safe environment (yes, we are talking those good old fashioned staff/patient ratios again).

MummyTigger, I mean this not in a derogatory way, but I have pointed you in the direction of the Care Quality Commission report (NHS watchdog) of May this year which clearly shows that doctors have had to prescribe drinking water for patients. They should not have to do this if the nurses had been ensuring patient intake of water. So, no, my experience is not an isolated one.
Sorry but you sound very young and naive to think that it would be a one-off.

agedknees well you are obviously one of the good nurses and I respect that.

No mention of the legal staff/patient ratios, Wamster?

Look, nobody on here said that someone else on here wasn't doing their job properly.

There are threads every week about teachers who don't do their jobs properly - think of those who say their children's work is mis-marked or that the teacher doesn't seem to like their child.

Why shouldn't it be different for every job? Isn't it obvious that not every job can be doing a great job? Are they exempt?

And in any case, isn't the thread about whether the OP's daughter was given poor advice? Why make this personal?

Not every nurse can be doing a good job, not every job doing a great job, ffs!

I did Occupational Therapy, which I imagine is similar to the Nursing degree. It's much harder to do a degree when you are on placements and doing 35 hours a week theory/practicals all term when you are not on placement. The academic requirements are the same as a person doing 6 hours a week on some courses. I was the one in my halls working all hours when others on traditional degree courses were watching daytime TV with hangovers as they had no need to work hard. I would also be furious with him too.

You can't compare nursing now to how it was 10,20, 30 years ago. It has changed phenomenally.

We are caring for an increasingly aged population, with increasingly complex health needs. Medicine is pushing back boundaries all the time, therapies are changing and developing and treatment can be far more radical and aggressive. Surgery is more cutting-edge, can be more extensive, can offer potentially more post-operative complications. Terminal care is better, more holistic and more pharmacological. Primary care is hugely more extensive, encompassing far more chronic disease management and disease prevention than it ever did.

So saying that nurses don't need degrees because my neighbour/aunty/mum says so is just not relevant, to be honest. Yes of course you don't need a degree to care, to nurture or to support. But given that nursing is far more 'medical' than it ever was a degree can only be a good thing, ensuring that all nurses are educated and trained to the same high standards, with a deeper understanding of their underpinning practice.

Nurses nowadays need a far better grounding in anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, psychology. The expectations on a nurse in 2011 are very far removed from the expectations that would have been placed on a nurse in 1961. In those days nursing was much more 'by rote', basic cares were done in rounds (back trolley, anyone?!) and nurses weren't the autonomous and independent practitioners that they are now.

Of course nurses need to work from the bottom up, fundamental care is the most basic tenet of nursing. But current staffing levels, skill mixes and pressures mean that registered nurses need to prioritise their time carrying out those tasks that ONLY a registered nurse can do.

I am sorry but the reason I have been stressing the water incident is because part of me thinks what the heck is the point of a degree if nurses are not getting basics right? Surely the main role of a nurse is to care?

I'm sorry, do you mean the ONE member of staff "having to prescribe water on medicine charts to ensure patients got enough to drink". Doesn't that strike you as a one-off since it was just ONE member of staff rather than the hundreds you would ave us believe otherwise?

I'm not saying everyone's perfect, but the reason anyone would be left without water is because they are considered able to reach it themselves. And there aren't enough hours in the day making sure everyone hits their quota in regards to water. Furthermore, nurses shouldn't be blamed for it, and you should realise this since you proclaim to be a nurse yourself. If they actually had enough nurses working, and didn't have so many other duties that are obviously more important than water, then incidences would never happen. But they do. It still doesn't mean they are in the majority, and it should be the MANAGEMENT that are made to suffer.

I refer you again to the most sensible woman I've ever had the pleasure of reading: this right here

There are PLENTY of "good" nurses in the world, don't just lump everyone in with people who you considered to be sub-par.

And as ImperialBlether has said, "There are threads every week about teachers who don't do their jobs properly - think of those who say their children's work is mis-marked or that the teacher doesn't seem to like their child." So by your reasoning, I should be insulting your profession to high heaven because obviously every teacher in the world is just out to make their pupils suffer.

I've tried to steer this back to the OP several times, but all Wamster seems to want to do is nitpick. So I'll say this again: I believe that people should do what makes them happy in life and pursue something they are passionate about, rather than doing something they don't like, ending up in a job they'll despise and which will result in their spirit being completely crushed. If you're passionate about art, don't go and do a degree in medicine just because the end result is you'll be paid more. Because as far as I'm concerned, money can't buy happiness.

Does anyone agree? Disagree? What are your views on "useless" university degrees?

I don't think teachers need a degree. After all, their main function is to look after children. Why do they need a degree for that? And they're not even doing a very good job, you only have to look at the numbers of children who aren't getting a good education and leave school with no qualifications. I think it's time to get back to basics with teaching. Bloody teachers are getting above themselves since it became a degree only profession. It wasn't like that in the old days. My grandma was a teacher and she didn't have a degree. If she could see what was going on nowadays....etc, etc

Teachers do need a degree, either a cerd ed, or a degree plus a pgce. The poor education is not always due to the teachers, but everything else in the wider education setting picture. School ethos, funding, government incentives. Etc

I think the majority of teachers do a degree course now (either teaching or subject followed by pgce), but DM taught for years and years, was head of department twice etc and did a teaching certificate which was specifically not a degree (although a 3 year university-based course) Dom-sci teaching wasn't a degree course in those days.

She's certainly not worse than teachers who've done the newer degree/PGCE route just because they have a photo on their wall of them in a silly hat.

coi owner of several funny hat photos.

Havent read the whole thread but I'd think nursing or anything medical is a more difficult degree in many ways! You actually have to turn up and do proper work placements and stuff. My academic philosophy and politics degree meant I could get away with hardly turning up and looking back I regret doing minimum work!

Oh Wamster, my sister went and did a "proper" degree in a pure science subject, in fact two of them at a "proper" really good university whereas I merely went to an ex poly. I got her to check all my essays as she is a genius and she reliably informs me that my essays were always just as hard as anything she did in her degree. What she appreciated most is not only the depth but the breath of knowledge covered in my degree (16 years ago). I'm am now doing a Masters in a science subject and find it much easier now than I did then.

It's ahuge pity if people think it's opver ambitious for their daughtesr to be nurses. Why nurses and not leading surgeons? Why think £20k is a high wage? Why the paucity of ambition for girls?