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.

Debating whether a doctor is better than a nurse is as stupid as debating if an OT is better than a PT. They are different things. They have different purposes. They're ALL important and necessary. Teammates, not rivals.

Exactly... of all the things that need to change, calling us "nurses" is the least of the issues.

Filling the 40,000+ nursing vacancies would be preferred, so nurses can actually do the job they trained to do rather than finishing every shift feeling like they didn't do enough for anyone's needs would be a better focus. As would every incident during which "lessons are learned" be useful if the lesson learned was to resource nursing staff properly so they can implement what they know needs implemented.

Once that's sorted, then worry about calling us "nurses".

Dr's don't phone relatives usually. I've heard of relatives wanting to speak or request the Dr in person on the wards. But sitting and ringing relatives? It's the nurses job to update you.

Ex nurse here. Nurses nurse (i.e. care for people) and the title perfectly describes the job IMO. It can be a very tough job.

The profession doesn't get enough credit from some but changing the job title to something unintelligible won't change that.

@Notallangels

Are ANPs practicing medicine then?

I work in Paediatrics and within and we have Specialist Nurses in the following fields:

Allergy Nurses
Respiratory Nurses
Orthapaedic Nurses
Infant Feeding Nurses
Oncology Nurses
Epilepsy Nurses
Haemophillia Nurses
Diabetes Nurses

All these nurses are working at Band 7 and 8 and generally run their own clinics, diagnose, put treatment plans in place, arrange follow-up etc, all with very little input from the Doctors.

Regarding the field I work in, I see the patients when they come in to A&E, I make my assessment and decide whether admission is needed or not. The doctors are happy for me to make this call and if the patient is admitted I decide what treatment path to go down, making changes as needed and I get the final say about when the patient is ready for discharge.

All the doctors, from F1s up to Consultants know I have far more knowledge and expertise in my area than they do so they happily just let me get on with it because they trust me - just in the same way they trust the other Specialist Nurses to do their jobs too.

I presume this is why the op posted?

The complete lack of knowledge of what nursing roles entail now.

Even outright denial of what nursing entails

And then there are Health Visitors who get a really rotten time on Mumsnet. Health Visitors are registered nurses, and or midwives, who have done extra training and hold a degree in Public Health. Health Visitors work closely with GPs and yes, GPs rely on Health Visitors, who generally know far more about babies and young children. Health Visitors run their own child health clinics and are nurse prescribers. Health Visitors can refer babies and children to many other specialists without even talking to a GP.

"All the doctors, from F1s up to Consultants know I have far more knowledge and expertise in my area"

You think you know more about paediatrics than a paediatric consultant?

This!

I thought you were talking about breastfeeding -misses point-

I seriously wonder why doctors:

1. Give up their teen years to revise for A*s in the hardest GCCEs/A Levels.
2. Spend £100k and 5-6 years dissecting cadavers, sitting crazily hard exams while their friends are out partying, and struggling for training opportunities on the wards.
3. Sit postgraduate exams with 30% pass rates and fight for training numbers to specialise.
4. Give up the entirely of their twenties, missing weddings, losing relationships to become consultants in their thirties and forties.

When they can apparently just do a 3 year nursing degree and gain the same knowledge via "experience".

@Notallangels

I'd imagine status and pay has a lot to do with it

You think you know more about paediatrics than a paediatric consultant?

Of course I don’t.

I said I know more about my specific field than they do.

There are reasons why there are Specialists Nurse, and reasons why doctors have “specialities” and it’s because nobody can know everything about everything. Not even Consultants.

If a child comes in with a broken bone the Consultant will get in touch with Orthopaedics. If a child comes in with DKA the Consultant will contact the Diabetes team. If the child comes in with respiratory difficulties the Consultant will contact the respiratory team etc etc

Consultants have huge amounts of knowledge about medicine, that’s why they are Consultants but thankfully they are humble enough to understand that doesn’t make them God and that they aren’t the only ones that can help the child.

Doctors at all stages of experience require input from the relevant specialist roles - that’s just how things are.

It’s about having a variety of people all in the same team, with different skills and knowledge sets, so we can all work together to meet the needs of many different children.

I've been a nurse for 7 years and rarely has the treatment I provide been prescribed by a doctor. That's a very medicalised perspective of nursing.

Such ignorance! Once qualified as a Registered Nurse, after three years training, nurses continually learn and complete courses and take exams. It doesn't stop after three years.

Oh come on, breathing difficulties and DKA are both bread and butter for a general paediatric consultant. I'll grant you that I'd only be involved in the broken bone if there was a child protection concern, but that's because orthopaedics is a surgical speciality, not a paediatric one.

No doctor has ever told me how to bed bath a patient, how to care for their pressure areas. How to manage their nutritional needs. How to treat their wounds. How to manage their post op care. How to support them and their families emotionally. How to prepare them for death. No doctor has ever sat with any of my patients and held their hands as they died.

There are many things doctors are. Many areas they have superior knowledge.

But the idea that they direct every aspect of nursing care or that nurses need a doctor to treat patients is nonsense

I agree with this.

DS2 is a nurse. He decided when he was 4yo that he was going to be a nurse and that never changed. He’d laugh if anyone said he must feel insulted at being called a nurse. He’s really proud of what he does.

I've been a nurse for 7 years and rarely has the treatment I provide been prescribed by a doctor. That's a very medicalised perspective of nursing.

For a certain subset of infants who come to our ward, the doctor sees them in A&E and then they are admitted to our ward for nurse led care.

The assessments are done by nurses, the treatment plans are made by nurses and the discharge is completed by the nurse.

In fact the infant doesn’t even see a doctor on the ward for the duration of their stay unless there is a huge deterioration in their condition and they need moving to the High Dependency Unit for example.

An FY1 straight out of med school can manage DKA. Granted they can't do a hemiarthroplasty.

Specialist nurses don't exist to patch holes in consultant knowledge. They exist because there are not enough doctors and something like the stepwise management of chronic asthma according to NICE guidelines can be passed to a nurse somewhat, but not entirely, safely.

The way you describe it makes it seem like you have special training and expertise beyond the capabilities of a paeds consultant which would be insulting were it not completely mad.

You’re right, I’m just making it all up. You clearly know how every paediatric unit works in every hospital.

All we do is stand around, bat our eyelashes and do as we are told.

I’ve been rumbled!!!

The way you describe it makes it seem like you have special training and expertise beyond the capabilities of a paeds consultant which would be insulting were it not completely mad.

Ive had a lot more training in my field than the doctors have. In fact part of my role is providing training to the doctors.

You have a seriously deluded idea of what nurses roles are these days.

Exams and courses that are not even remotely as academically demanding as postgraduate medical training.