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.

I'm a nurse and proud - this is ridiculous.
I'm an advanced clinical practitioner, i can see patients and prescribe, but i'm still a nurse.

SunshinePie are you a nurse? Do you have a vested interest in the replies to this thread? I only ask because a very similar one was started about a week ago on another forum and the author was eventually rumbled as a journalist!!!

But in answer to some of your points and the points already on this thread.

I am a Registered Nurse of 26 years. I studied for an undergraduate degree and got it with Honours. We were told that having a degree would help us with promotion etc which was a load of nonsense.

Our degree programme was the same as the one done by the diploma course, the only addition was an extra year where we studied the history of nursing and medicine, and wait for it studied how nursing is portrayed in books, poetry, art etc.

As a nurse I have worked in the NHS and private sector; I have worked abroad and done telemedicine. I have worked in acute and chronic hospital care as well as the community.

All nurses are trained to examine their clients and provide rational thoughts/opinions as to what is going on. And some of us go on train to do more diagnostic work.

But the crux of our training is care and that is where the title comes from. My male colleagues will agree with me. To be a good nurse you have to treat it as a vocation otherwise the job becomes meaningless and you cannot provide a good level of care. Yes it is good to be more technical based but we are still CARING for our clients.

I wish people would just leave titles alone and spend more time and effort in getting us more money and resources to do our JOBS!!!

I'd leave the title Nurse alone tbh but I do think we need to change "carer" to something different.

We have a local radio advert that pushes the "have a cuppa tea and a biscuit" side of caring which in my experience is maybe a teeny tiny part of being a carer and very little of the reality.

Caring is hard as a job is hard. The level of expectation of what carers are required to do is enormous and we pay them pittance for largely unsociable hours that they complete often autonomously - it's no wonder we have a crisis recruiting and retaining staff in this sector.

I'd make it a proper career, pay accordingly in relation to the responsibility they have, give them proper career progression and proper recognition. Then maybe we'd have a sustainable and appropriate care system.

The big issue though is noone (with the purse strings) is prepared or able to pay for it ......

I can’t understand how it could be “insulting to those with degrees and men”. And men?? And why would nurses with degrees, which is presumably almost all of them, be INSULTED by the name?

And actually nursing is a great title because we all know what it is. “Medic practitioner” or something sounds lesser. The way if you work in a shop you are suddenly a customer service advisor etc. Making the name more complicated downgrades the job.

You've chosen to exclude the word 'primarily' from my post in your quote.

Most nurses are not working in diagnostic or treatment based roles. That's just a fact.

And yes they do support and assist junior doctors. That doesn't mean that could do their job.

Agree. Something along the lines of a midwife/nurse but for the elderly and disabled. Can't think of a sensible name though.

@Notallangels

FY1s certainly do not rely on nurses, and often have to carry out their work in spite of poor attitudes and harassment on the wards. Many FY1s, particularly female ones, are actively bullied and disrespected by nursing staff.

Not ime.

I've never known an FYI be able to do their job without a massive amount of direction from the nursing staff.

There's even a 'to do' task book that the nurses write in literally telling the FY1s what needs to be done.

Nurses lead cardiac arrests. Nurses treat deteriorating pts and manage their care.

I appreciate the role doctors have in pt care but they do rely heavily on the MDT.

Thats why its a team

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

That's a very old fashioned attitude right there.

Some nurses were massively helpful when I was a junior. Others were bullies. But I don't think you can say they don't support as like all things, it's a mixed bag.

Insulting to males?!?

I kind of know what you mean OP. The term nurse conjures up an old-fashioned image of women tucking in bedsheets. Nursing has moved on so much and has morphed into something so much more than it used to be.

The 'to do' list is usually a request from the doctor to make their day easier and avoid multiple bleeps. And because a nurse is covering, maybe 8 patients, and an on call doctor is covering maybe 100. Let's not frame this as nurses having to tell the doctor what needs doing.

@holid

Most nurses are not working in diagnostic or treatment based roles. That's just a fact.

I disagree.

Most nurses I know diagnose and treat conditions all the time as part of every day practice.

They may need input from doctors or ANPs for more complex issues but to say they have no role is any diagnostic or treatment is nonsense

Yabu, nurse is good, everyone knows what it means, it is obviously not sexist, no need to invent random issues where there isn't one.

You probably think the "direction" is helpful, but actually it isn't. There are a lot of nurses who think a patient needs more fluids writing up simply because the bag has finished, that it is necessary to constantly bleep the FY1 about baseline hypotensive patient when they're scoring for the same thing for 6 hours, that interrupting the ward round for a TTO is acceptable, etc. etc.

FY1s are highly intelligent and trained, fully qualified doctors with 5-6 years of medical school behind them. The infantalisation of them by the NHS is unacceptable. They do not need guidance from a nurse, they need support from senior medics.

Final year med students do ALS and can run a cardiac arrest. It's a highly protocolised form of medicine with a very narrow scope: A-E assessment, fix as you go. The fact that you think this counts as working at the level of a doctor shows you don't really understand much about medicine or what medical training involves.

We’d do better paying them
more than pissing about with their title

You don’t sound like your are promoting team work in that post! Sadly comes across as very disparaging. I’m well over a decade since my FY1 days and have always loved working as part of a team and respecting the expertise of others. Of course FY1s are going to need support and guidance, the same as brand new nurses do or anyone changing into a new role. Or even the ST6 who has newly started on the ward.…

I mean we'll have to agree to disagree.

Although I'm curious as to what conditions staff nurses (the majority of nurses) are diagnosing and treating?

@holid

Most hospital wards have 1 FY1 and 1 ANP. And multiple middle graders and consultants

The FY1s shift is based in that ward.

I'd actually love to see how their day went if the to do book was removed and they had to plan their care on their own

🤣

@Topgub wow, your last comment really is horrid. I hope the nurses I work with have never looked down on me like you seem to on FY1s.

I've been a junior doctor in several hospitals and only had to do lists for on call shifts. But you carry on infantilising your junior doctors and making generalisations about all junior doctors

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

Go on then @SunshinePie I'll bite, why is the term nurse especially insulting to degree educated men?

A nurse is a person specifically trained to specifically care for sick or inform people primarily in a hospital setting......why is that descriptor insulting or demeaning in any way?

The disrespect you show towards FY1s is disgusting and exactly the kind of bullying attitude that's endemic in modern nursing.

@countbackfromten

Its not meant to sound disparaging. Just realistic.

I thought the days of doctors viewing nurses as little more than arse wipers were long gone but clearly not by some of these posts