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.

@Notallangels

They can't do the same job as a doctor because they're not a doctor.

except you said they were doing the same jobs as doctors because of doctor shortages

So which is it?

Changes have and are happening but job titles continue to include nurse. What will happen is a change in understanding what nursing involves. Specialist nurses are a growing part of the NHS. They run their own clinics, conduct minor procedures, treatments and coordinate patient care. The skill set changes are across the board including auxiliaries/hca/ care assistants.

I think it has a long and illustrious history that would be a shame to wipe out with a name change. I also think many, many people do understand that nursing as a career has many specialisms and senior nurses are often highly skilled professionals. Having a caring connotation (which it does) should NOT be considered somehow inferior- that really is sexist.

The problem might be that it's hard on the ward to tell the difference between nurses and health care assistants or even dinner staff / cleaners

No, that's what happens in paediatrics in a great big shiny tertiary centre. Not what happens to all the children admitted to average DGHs, who stay under the general paediatric team.

Wow @Notallangels you really don’t like the modern progression of the nurses role do you?

Im so glad my amazing senior consultants plus wider multi disciplinary team on our unit respect the every changing and expanding roles of all healthcare staff and work together as an experienced team for the best patient centre care. Not form a ridiculous hierarchy on who has the better degrees/education or title of ‘Doctor.’ It’s 2022.

@Notallangels interesting username.

really no need for you to feel so threatened by nurses.

@Notallangels interesting username.

really no need for you to feel so threatened by nurses.

I'm very proud of my 'nurse' title. Yes clinically we do more and more, I'm embarking on completing my advanced practice in which I'll be able to assess, exam, diagnose and prescribe much like a junior doctor. I love the times tho (few and far between unfortunately but it does happen at times) that I can help a person wash, dress and eat, hold their hands when they are dying..... ❤️❤️❤️

@Notallangels interesting username.

really no need for you to feel so threatened by nurses.

Sorry re multiple posts.

No, that's what happens in paediatrics in a great big shiny tertiary centre. Not what happens to all the children admitted to average DGHs, who stay under the general paediatric team.

None of our Paediatric Consultants are “general” - they all have their own speciality.

We have:

Emergency Medicine Consultants
Allergy Consultants
Palliative Care Consultants
Safe Guarding Consultants
Oncology Consultants
Orthopaedic Consultants
Neurology Consultants
Haematology Consultants
CAMHS Consultants
Diabetes Consultants
Respiratory Consultants
Cardiology Consultants

All these are Paediatric Consultants who can obviously treat anything and everything as they have huge amounts of knowledge, but they each gave their area of expertise which is why they will see a patient instead of another Consultant seeing them.

The only Consultants we use from the “Adult World” are if we need a child to be seen by ENT, Dermatology, Urology etc.

If a child’s needs are greater than we can provide for they will get transferred to a more Specialist Trust, like BCH, GOSH etc.

So you really must be at a tertiary centre. You do realise that's a different planet to DGH medicine? No general paediatric consultants at all is scary. Our nearest tertiary centre does have some general paediatricians, because the local population needs them. DGHs are run by general paediatricians.

Very true bed managers and specialist nurses where the same colour uniform.

My wife is a nurse
Very proud of it and rightly so!
I couldn't do it

Yes, we have two local DGH and a lot of their patients come to us. One of the hospitals has a children’s A&E department but no children’s ward so if any child needs admitted they are transported to us.

The other local hospital has one general Paediatric Ward but are very limited in what treatment they can provide, so again, a lot of their patients also come to us.

If anyone in one of the neighbouring districts calls for an ambulance for a baby/infant/child the ambulances have to come to us as we are the only hospital out of the three that have a Paediatric Resus.

Our Trust has a Paediatric A&E complete with Resus, a children’s outpatient department, children’s medical and surgical day units, three children wards (separated by ages of the patients) and a Paediatric High Dependency Unit. The only thing we don’t have is a Paediatric Intensive care so although we can intubate and ventilate sick children they are turn transferred to other Trusts with an ITU.

I think it’s because we provide such a large service that we have so many Specialist Consultants, Specialist Nurses and ANPs in order to provide a better and more efficient service.

YABU

Words change meaning overtime. I don't associate a "nurse" ever with breastfeeding!!!!! 😖

YABU.

And the two DGHs in our trust have 24/7 children's wards, and keep the vast majority of our own patients. Our tertiary centre would not remotely have the capacity if we sent all our patients over, and given distances it would be very detrimental for the families. So we happily manage bronchiolitis babies on Airvo, or children with DKA (except for the rare one who needs PICU...I think there's been one of those in the last 5 years). We did use to ship a few more when meningococcus was more common, but only when they needed PICU. Except for those needing PICU, level 3 NICU, or paediatric surgeons, we probably only transfer 1 or 2 inpatients a month, and manage all the rest ourselves.

Quite a lot of children don't live anywhere near a tertiary centre, and receive the overwhelming majority of their care from general paediatricians.

Point one is not true.
They are are trained to independently assess, diagnose and treat medical issues within their scope of practice, without medical assistance. The only protocols they are governed by are the same ones as doctors Eg NICE guidelines and trust policy.

Quite a lot of children don't live anywhere near a tertiary centre, and receive the overwhelming majority of their care from general paediatricians.

We have just under 65 inpatient beds but I don’t know if we’d be classed as Tertiary Care seeing as we don’t have a Paediatric ITU?

Your Trust sounds a lot better than our DGH that feeds into us - it would scare you what they with bronchiolitic babies. They don’t even apply oxygen half the time, never mind know what to do with AirVo 😂

I was a nurse in the old days when you qualified as SRN meaning state registered nurse.We never heard of degrees back then but did not think we were less clever than the nurses today.
No one would call us anything else.There were no specialist nurses, nurse consultants or practitioners.We were all ward based caring for patients who were ill.

Oops. I see my thoughts are the minority 😂 Ah well, interesting to hear others opinions 👍

@SunshinePie

What are your views based on?

Why would nursing be an insult to men?

Still curious SunshinePie what your job is?