To think nursing is not considered a 'profession' by the general public

[roseability]

We just mop up sick and wipe brows and all that

Do people really consider the nursing profession as 'educated' and on a par with other degree trained professions?

Or should nurses be defined as 'caring' principally, not allowing aspiartions of status to undermine this ideal?

What do doctors really think of nurses?

Just interested

Oh ! (Disappointed emoticon) I thought it was the one and only fish!

lol rg must be exciting on a Saturday night

....it is amazing that no-one I ever see actually started the fight.

They were all trying to break it up....

Wonder what happens to the instigators of a Saturday night (or, these days, of a Sunday afternoon. They are fond of a pissed punch up of a Sunday in these parts...)

right, dd2 has finally succumbed to the cocktail I gave her an hour ago , so with only 6 hours to go until I have to get up for work, I must go to bed.

disclaimer - paracetamol and teething gel, 6 teeth arriving at the same time.

night night

night

My first degree was a helkl out a lot easier to achieve than my degree in nursing. Nursing was hell. I am now doing a law degree and finding it easier.

Patients have a higher survival rate when their nurses have a more academic background.

Nursing requires a degree/diploma nowadays because healthcare has changed dramatically. The amount of knowledge one needs to have to work in this field doubles every 2 years. The care of the patients is much more complex today than it was decades ago. Basically if you got real sick back then, you died. No complicated drips etc. Nurses didn't do complex assessments. If the doc was off the ward attending to something else you died.

Just to clarify a misunderstanding:

The minimum level of training to legally call yourself a nurse (i.e. and RN) is 3 years at uni. Following those three years you get registered with our professional body. Only then you can call yourself a nurse. Then you can work in a ward, in ITU, in a GP practice etc...and specialize your further education towards what you area you are working in. So an ITU nurse does not have a higher degree than a GP practice nurse. But the post grad education they have will follow a different path.

GP practices and general wards are mostly staffed with health care assistants nowadays. I think that is what causes the confusion.

I think it's a profession, it's just a pity their employers (ie in most cases the NHS) obviously don't, if they did they would pay more.

But then saying that, even drs don't get paid well enough IMO, I know of at least one consultant who has left the NHS to work in the Middle East, as he found it impossible to raise a family on drs' pay, which I found disgusting. He was a fab dr, loss to us, but gain to where he went to.

I did have utmost respect for all nurses until unfortunately I childminded a child of a nurse who was as thick as two short planks. I do wonder how she qualified and it would have worried me if she was in charge of measuring doses or some such like. She also brought her child to me with an almost 40 degree temperature claiming he wasn't ill.

I'm sure nurses are not all like that, it just makes me wonder how easy it is to become one.

As far as 'professional' - I thought that meant one stage further than a degree, i.e. post-graduate. Could be completely wrong.

I agree with ClairePO - it's just a label. It shouldn't change how any of us conduct in our own professions.

I'm a pharmacist and consider myself to be a professional. I know there may be many people that don't think of pharmacy as a profession and think all I do is count tablets

There is a lot of training involved with nursing and it is certainly a vocation. Personally I do think it is a profession.

So if others don't think it's a profession, what can we do? Try and change opinions by giving the very best professional care and using our skills and knowledge as best we can in the interest of our patients.

With regards to pharmacy, I have also got involved with giving voluntary talks to local groups about the role of the pharmacist, the training that we receive and the services that we offer. I find this is a really good way to change opinions.

professional big definate yes,worked so hard to try and bring my grandson back ,who died of cot death yes human ,caring, and god did they try.
on saturday my fil minutes from death they have saved ,and looking after him now,they deserve a medal.thank god for nurses and doctors,thanks

When did I last clear up wee? On friday. The catheter bag sprung a leak.

When did I last clear up sick? Well, I prolonged the dressing change for just a few more minutes when I heard the patient next door vomit all over the floor/table/himself, but only cause I knew my colleague was there!! But I was in there a moment after the vomiting had stopped. So the answer would be the saturday before.

When did I last turn up to start a shift usually staffed by 7+ staff to find only two others? Friday.

When did I last point out to a dr the drug error made? Friday.

When did I last get cross with a dr for his complete incompetence (I was giving a correct prescription, he called during adminsitration stated he was happy with this then visited the ward and refused to sign the sheet!!! Claimed he had not been told it was being given over the phone...) Oh, that would be on Friday too.

When did I last tell the Dr what medication to prescribe as a TTA? Friday.

On our ward the professor trusts the opinions of nurses on a patients condition more so than that of the drs.

I don't know whether I am a professional or not (probably not when I'm a vomit avoider! ) but I was trained to believe I was such. And nurses do an awful lot more than just the cleaning up jobs. I think if you speak to most people who have been in hospital for anything more than a short stay/quick visit would argue the same.

Knowing the work that the Macmillin nurse does I work with and the esteem with which her patients hold her - I can't say she is not a professional. Nor can I say that about the critical care nurse who is implementing a sepsis tool in our hospital which has the potential to save many lives...

Oh and I'd just like to add I only work fridays/saturdays hence all my tales stemming from there!

As a doctor I do consider nursing as a profession. But as a doctor and a patient I have much more respect for those nurses who nurse than those who try and change nursing into medicine or walk around with a clipboard all day. Medicine and Nursing are very different disciplines but both are essential for the good care of a patient. Personally I would not want to be treated medically by anyone other than a GMC registered doctor. I would also not like to be nursed by anyone other than a NMC registered nurse.

Anyone who believes that mopping brows or helping clean an ill vomiting patient is beneath them is not a nice person - let alone a professional in my opinion and I've done my fair share. But if I'm doing the job nurses are trained to do and they are doing the job I trained to do the patient is getting a raw deal on both counts. Being a professional encompasses certain values, one of which is using formal safety procedures rather than slagging of your collegues. I can give as many counts of nurses mistakes as anyone can doctors and have been bullied by a fair few - and I still think nursing is a worthwhile profession!

So, down the management who are disempowering the real nurses by telling their job is worthless and they need a clipboard or a fancy title to be taken seriously!

Power to the nurses who nurse! who are proud of the care they give, and don't think that being the person who changes the dressings, who changes the sheets so someone doesn't have to sleep in their own mess is beneath them, who are professional in all their dealings with coleagues and patients and who are proud to be nurses!

and who can spell colleagues!

I am a learning disabilities nurse - and find that my standing as a "professional" is constantly called into question - esp by people like my mother, who is an old school SRN. She calls me all sorts of things "early learning teacher" was a good one for a while "not really a nurse" "it's not really nursing " "so what is your qualification?".

I believe I am a professional, and when , as an E grade, I am expected to run a unit, i expect others to treat me like a professional too.

Well said ummadam

I agree with your point tbh

shrinkingsagpuss - I believe mothers say such things because they are jealous of their daughters.

My mother says similar things

I think too many nurses have a chip on their shoulder these days about whether they are as valued or clever as doctors /physios etc.

I for one think the old apprentice way of training was much better .Imo standards of nursing have gone down since training went into the universities for a number of reasons which I am too knackered to go into as I have just come off night duty .

Actually, you can qualify in 2 years (I did, in 2003) and you can qualify in nursing without a degree at some universities.

My registration will lapse in September, because I know that come re-registration in 2012 I will not have enough practice hours, (I am having another baby, giving me 3 under 3½ in April) because I won't be working in any way before 2011. I have decided not to pay £76 per year for the next 4 years, only to lapse in 2012.

I will still be able to call myself a qualified nurse. I am qualified and no lack of registration can change that. What I can't do is represent myself as a registered nurse, or give advice or treatment as a nurse.

And, I have experienced a truly shocking 'qualified' nurse, who was newly qualified. She had been passed without a knowledge of even the basics.

She honestly didn't have the first clue what the numbers on the monitor meant. No concept of blood pressure, what it means. No concept of what a fast pulse actually indicates. Nada.

She came to work in recovery in neurosurgical theatres. She was a danger to the patients, because she didn't know what was normal, let alone abnormal. We had to constantly supervise her to make sure that nothing serious was missed. Quite, quite scary.

Not read the thread, but want to say that I have the utmost respect for nurses as professionals!

I don't think the general public are too concerned with whether or not particular jobs might be defined by some people as 'professional' or not, I can't see that as being hugely important.

I think what is important for any person doing any job is that they are valued, rewarded and acknowledged for what they do, and if they are good at their job, that that is recognised.

I think lots of people think very highly of nurses, more so than doctors, and consider the work they do to be extremely important, under-valued and not sufficiently rewarded. Isn't that more important?

By most of the definitions given on this thread I could call myself a 'professional', and in cases where you have to select a type of occupation, that's probably what I'd do. But that's completely irrelevant to me. What's important is that people think I am good at what I do and that I am appropriately rewarded for it.

I don't consider whether I have any particular 'status' in society because of my job. In fact most people have a low opinion of my job anyway... Doesn't bother me, I am happy to disprove preconceived ideas by being personally marvellous

SImilarly, level of education or perceived level of education is a red herring as well. I have a degree and a post-graduate qualification but I don't consider myself to be higher status than people who 'only' have a degree. Nor do I consider myself to be lower status than people with more qualifications/more lengthy study than me.

Agree with Flowery. Can't we just agree to respect nurses for the wonderful job they do? Professional means different things to different people anyway. To some people on this thread it is about higher qualifications, to others it is about showing respect for work that's being done- they're not the same thing (though of course they can be combined).

I think nurses are wonderful. I will never forget the nurse who looked after my father when he had a stroke. He lost the ability to swallow, I cannot remember what it was she went to fetch for him, some sort of patch or something (it is a long time ago) and she went to get this IN HER OWN TIME. She was really lovely and came to see my father at home as a visitor not a nurse when he left hospital. It was over 12 miles away. She was truly an angel.