Nursing should be re-named?

[SunshinePie]

Was pondering over this recently, is calling “nursing” is a bit old fashioned? You now need a degree to be a nurse, and they often are pretty much doing junior doctor jobs. Calling it something else that recognises it’s academic demands, and also more inclusive to males wanting to work in the field…something like Healthcare Medic / Healthcare Practitioner/ Assistant Medic…. Or similar, you get the idea….

-YABU, it should be kept “nurse”, it’s traditional and has roots in “nursing an infant” ie breastfeeding (that reflects the caring nature)

-YANBU it’s old fashioned, insulting to people with degrees and esp males.

It’s similar to teachers. Plus two nurses and two teachers could buy a house in many areas. Just not expensive ones.

@BadNomad

No need to get personal.

Throughout the thread @lameasahorse as said no nurse has ever been capable of answering a question.

They then threw in the 2 consultant thing after I said I would be able to answer questions about scans and treatment plans

And said I was over stating nursing experience.

I've understood what they're saying fine

@Gwenhwyfar

Its shit for the role.

Which we're seeing now in the fact we can't recruit nurses or hca or carers

said no nurse has ever been capable of answering a question

That is not what she said. She said the nurses would get a doctor to talk to her to answer certain questions. Nothing to do with nurses being incapable of answering them or not understanding medicine. You know there are certain times when it is only appropriate for doctors to give information. It is not a reflection on anyone's intelligence or ability to do their job.

I must admit I didn’t check the pay scales but you absolutely will be in charge of a ward as a band 5. So 25k ish

@BadNomad

Except when I explained that they implied it was a lack of ability.

I'm well aware of why nurses don't always answer questions and direct to doctors instead

@Topgub It is a possibility, though. I've worked with many nurses and some I wouldn't trust to look after a potato. Don't pretend all nurses have enthusiasm and ambition. There is no obligation or requirement to learn about medical conditions or drugs beyond a base level. There are plenty who are happy to do the bare minimum then go home. Those that are too posh to wash and say crap like "I didn't spend 3 years at university to wipe asses" then spend 12 hours writing up their notes while buzzers go off all around them. So if that poster says nurses couldn't answer her questions, why is she wrong? That is her experience.

@BadNomad

I've acknowledged their experience.

Its vastly different to mine but we can't all have the same experience.

I'm aware some nurses are shit. I've said that. Some doctors are shit. Some paramedics and on and on

There is no obligation or requirement to learn about medical conditions or drugs beyond a base level. There are plenty who are happy to do the bare minimum then go home

This is sadly very true. I have met many nurses and genuinely wondered why they came into the profession.

Maybe they truly wanted to be a good nurse and had wonderful intentions of the difference to people’s lives they could make but sadly the reality of nursing is far from that.

I imagine a lot of nurses come into the job after they’ve qualified and within 6 months they realise it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and the passion for nursing starts to fade.

I really believe wannabe-doctors and nurses should work for 6 months as an HCA on a hospital ward before even applying to university. It's eye-opening.

But being a HCA is very different to being a nurse. Working as a HCA won’t give them a true insight into what the nurses role involves or the pressures they are under. They can watch the nurses and learn about the ward environment but HCA work is very different to that of the nurses.

Getting a real feel for being a nurse is what student nurses to discover when they go out on Placement and work alongside nurses to see what the job actually entails.

We do have some students drop out after they’ve spent a few months on the ward because they see the reality isn’t what they had envisaged.

I don’t see nursing as overly difficult and some of it is not stressful. Like most careers, if you stick at it, you earn more. £25,600 is just starting pay. Promotion is possible!
Vacancies are caused by EU staff going home.

I disagree. I worked as a very proactive band 3 HCA before becoming a nurse. Made sure I learned as much as possible. Got to do a lot more than I should have thanks to lazy nurses (nursing admissions and painkillers out of the trolley!). I was definitely better prepared than a lot of my uni mates.

Nursing is a tough job in many ways I think the degree is too the schedule is rubbish too.

It's a lot of responsibility for someone aged 21/22. You are easily struck off in nursing it's a physical and emotional job. Have you actually ever looked after any family member of your own solely??

@TizerorFizz

Are you nurse?

We do have some students drop out after they’ve spent a few months on the ward because they see the reality isn’t what they had envisaged.

IIRC the majority of uni drop outs occur in the first and last six months. I think the first would be reduced if they encouraged more people to get some healthcare work experience before starting Uni.

I don’t see nursing as overly difficult and some of it is not stressful.

Sometimes I used to sit in the car park in the morning, actually crying because I couldn’t face going in to work.

More often than not staff would either be in tears, or on the brink of them during shift because of how terrible it can be at times. We were just exhausted. The stress, the pressures, always feeling like you weren’t doing enough, always wanting to provide better care but not having the time to do it, it’s so demoralising. Throw in being on your feet for 13 hours at a minimum, not drinking, not eating and the whole day becomes unsustainable. But we have no choice but to keep going. It’s so hard.

It is physically and mentally draining.

Many nurses go off each year with stress and there’s a reason for it.

There’s a reason why there’s a nursing staffing crisis.

But yes, when it got to the point where I was crying in my car, not wanting to get out and step onto the ward, that was when I realised I was done with it.

I left and for another job, taking a £550 a month pay cut, but I just couldn’t carry on any more.

IIRC the majority of uni drop outs occur in the first and last six months

Thats interesting about high drop out rates in the last 6 months - I wonder why that is?

It seems strange to put yourself through 2.5 years of study and training to then drop out when you’re so close to the end.

Even if they didn’t want to be a nurse you’d think they’d power through for another 6 months to actually complete the degree rather than have wasted the last 2.5 years of their life.

@Perplexed0522

I'm not aware of many jobs where you're literally responsible for someone's life, where you could actually kill someone.

Where you have to manage not only the team of pts you're responsible for but also at times the whole ward. Where you have to be a nurse, a doctor, a physio, a phleb, a sw, a bed manager. Abusive relatives. Abusive pt. Physical and verbal. Confused pt, delirious, dementia pt.

Where you can work in a specialist field but also have to look after pts of every speciality because of boarding.

And have been doing all that with much less staff than you should be. Every shift is short staffed.

To go home utterly demoralised because you feel you've not delivered the care you want to.

But yeah. Its pretty easy. Definitely not worth more than 25k.

Tax accountant and footballers. Now there's a hard job that deserves their wage

🙄

I remember working one weekend and it was just unbearable.

It was at the height of winter so the wards were full of bronchiolitic babies.

We have a high dependent unit where we are allowed to take 6 patients, but on that day, things were so bad that we had 10 infants requiring HDU care.

In order to accommodate that it meant taking nurses of the main wards to assist in HDU which meant the wards were dangerously understaffed and HDU was staffed by nurses with no HDU experience.

We had an Agency Nurse on shift and she just walked out half way through the day because it was so awful.

My friend was one of the Sisters in the HDU and I found her sitting on the floor in our managers office and she was crying her eyes out. She was just sobbing. She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t stand, she just had nothing in her. She knew how dangerous things were and she knew she was responsible for what happened to the infants in HDU. All it takes is one small thing to get missed and you go from having a very sick baby to a ventilated one.

The Senior Matron got called in to the hospital because all control was lost. I bumped into her in the corridor and she asked how I was, I felt tears start to well up in my eyes and I said, “Just don’t ask.” She told me to tell her what was wrong and then the tears started falling and I told her that we couldn’t give the children the care we needed, we can’t keep working under this pressure and I shouldn’t have to see my colleagues sobbing on the floor because of how impossible our jobs are.

Ive had many, many horrendous days at work but I will never ever forget that one.

Like you said, these are children’s lives in our hands and the weight of that pressure and responsibility when we are working in such difficult working environments is immense.

I can’t put in to words how hard some days can be.

I once started work at 7.15am, didn’t eat until almost 6pm and then didn’t leave work until gone 11pm. I’d had one meal in 16 hours whilst working in a highly physically and mentally draining job, only to then go home and get up after 5.5 hours sleep to go and do it again.

Anyone who thinks nursing is easy and not stressful are deluded. There are a good few nurses on my ward who take medication for anxiety.

There’s a nursing crisis for a reason.

I work as a Specialist Nurse and when I actually got told about the upcoming role (my managers knew I would want to interview for it) I had actually gone in to work to hand my notice in. They told me to just stay until I had my interview, so I did and I got the job.

If I hadn’t have gotten the job I would have left because the stress and pressures that nurses are under now just isn’t sustainable.

This does not bear any resemblance to my experience as a nurse. I've worked many nursing jobs and they have all been stressful.

Are you a nurse??

Unbelievable.

What promotion? When you reach the top of your band, that's it. No pay increase. The only way to move up is to do more training and apply for a new job.

I wouldn't want to do it, but then I'm too old to start a job where I'd be on my feet all the time, but for a young person, isn't it a good opportunity? Turns out the pay is even more than I thought - see post that starting wage is over 25k and is over 30k within 5 years.
Maybe it's the conditions that need to be improved if there are problems with stress eg ensure that there are enough nurses and increase the wages in the expensive areas.

This shows that the problem is the working conditions rather than the wages.