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

Cali said:

'1. Degree

1. Specialist qualification

1. In order to practice, have to belong to regulatory body - NMC

1. CPD.

sounds like a lot of professions doesn't it?'

Sounds a lot like teaching as well, and we have to pass an NQT on the job year after the post grad as well. Reg body for us is the GTC.

oh. i have to have a degree? well sod that. i have a diploma in nursing, and i am jsut as much as a professional as my colleagues who chose a more academic route. Not that I couldn't have done. I chose to do a diploma, to get hands on training at one of teh best hospitals in teh world.

grumpy now.

Only speed read the thread, but from a sociological point of view, nursing is not generally regarded as a profession, or if it is then one of the 'lower professions'. According to the classification by the 'Standard Occupation classification' (Which is used by the national office of statistics, as the basis of their data), a 'professional' within health care is classed as...
"Medical practitioners
2212 Psychologists
2213 Pharmacists/pharmacologists
2214 Ophthalmic opticians
2215 Dental practitioners
2216 Veterinarians"

A nurse is in category 3 which is "ASSOCIATE PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL OCCUPATIONS" and is in the same category as...

Health Associate Professionals
3211 Nurses
3212 Midwives
3213 Paramedics
3214 Medical radiographers
3215 Chiropodists
3216 Dispensing opticians
3217 Pharmaceutical dispensers
3218 Medical and dental technicians
322 Therapists
3221 Physiotherapists
3222 Occupational therapists
3223 Speech and language therapists
3229 Therapists n.e.c.

A teacher, however is in category 2 as a professional (alongside most of the other professions such as scientists, engineers, lawyers and accountants etc). Category 1 is for managers and senior officials.

The categories are...
The Standard Occupational Classification consists of the following major groups:
1 Managers and Senior Officials
2 Professional Occupations
3 Associate Professional and Technical Occupations
4 Administrative and Secretarial Occupations
5 Skilled Trades Occupations
6 Personal Service Occupations
7 Sales and Customer Service Occupations
8 Process, Plant and Machine Operatives
9 Elementary Occupations

But that's just a technical definition

It depends how you define profession.

This does not take away from the highly valueable and essential job that nurses do, and their professional committment to their jobs and careers.

I'm a nurse and consider myself as a professional, I'm educated to post grad leve, have doen numerous therapeutic qualifications over the years and have worked in management and senior therapeutic positions

Today started post grad training in CBT, the ONLY way to move up the banding is to do Masters level qualifications or move to senior management, I'd say this should give nurses professional status.

The sad truth of the matter is that unfortunately some nurses are crap, have shit interpersonal and communication skills and IMO are dangerous. When I worked as a lecturer in nursing I was appalled at the fact practically anyone could get in. Some of their academic work was distinctly substandard and (I'm going to get flamed here) they just weren't bright enough to be competent professionals.

I expect I'm feeling wronged because of my treatment by the nurses in A+E recently (gynae prob), no eye contact, no explaining of what they were doing or why, unable to answer my questions etc. etc. one was downright rude and seemingly uninformed.

the junior docs were far nicer. I'm doing some training down there soon in how to assess and communicate with suicidal patients, should be interesting?!

HOWEVER, the Paed nurses at the same hosp are just ace and I won't have a word said against them, do have Huge issues with the way the A+E dept treat patients who self-harm tho (my clientele).

Anyway rant over

"This does not take away from the highly valueable and essential job that nurses do, and their professional committment to their jobs and careers."

True, but I'm not sure that saying a career is a profession just because the people who do the jobs are valued, essential and committed. After all, my nan was a very dedicated and hard working hospital cleaner for many years. Her job was essential to the running of the maternity ward (someone has got to get rid of all that blood!) She worked hard and often went above and beyond the call of duty, because that was the kind of person she was... so was she a member of a profession?

I think there's a difference between profession and professional. After all, we get professional footballers, and what you talk about is a nurse having a professional attitude to her job, which I don't doubt for a second, but I think there is a distinction between the two. After all, a footballer might be a professional, but I don't think anyone would say that footballing is a profession (in the traditional understanding of the term), no matter how hard and dedicated a particular footballer might be to his sport. Same goes for other careers, of which there are many dedicated and hard working people out there, who do all sorts of essential jobs - carers, lollipop ladies, school caretakers (they work bloody hard!) and so on... but if we count them as professionals on grounds of how hard they work, then surely every occupation is a profession? What then is the distinction? What does that term then mean?

there are definitely some nurses who are in the wrong job.

I have come across some class A bitches who talk to patients in an appalling manner.

But that is true of all jobs. I have met some awful teachers too, crap lawyers and one or two bloody awful doctors in my time! There's good and bad in all!

(Crouching in anticipation) IMHO I think the netry requirements to get into nursing should be upped not lowered as they have been. The job demands a certain level of literacy and numeracy and certainly in mental health to be able to write concisely and articulately.

I've re-written reports by collegues prior to presenting them because I've been so embarrassed, I've also attended CPA's where the qulaity of the nursing "report" has been dire in comparison to the other professional groups.

I do have a bit of a "thing" about bad English and if nurses want to be recognised for their professional status they need to pull their socks up, sharpish!

(BTW I admit to being a rubbish typist, I dictate all my reports and get them typed for me !)

i think that nursing is a profession (a highly skilled one)..

but then i am merely a lowly occupational therapist - so what would i know?

I don't think the general public think too deeply about what a profesisonal is. I'm not quite sure myself. It's probably a contrived term anyway, for the wealthiest workers in society.

imo,profession=regulatory body,
code of ethics,protected title eg you must be a a RN to call yourself Nurse
registrartion,
adherence to code of conduct & professional practice.
sanctions if one does not adhere to professional standards eg lose registration

other health profession's OT,Dietetics,physiotherapy have all of above requirements

interestingly the area of nutrition was getting increasingly swamped by quacks like Patrick Holford and Ahem "Dr" Gillian McKeith and their pseudo-science claims. soon "nutritionist" is to be a protected title too only Registered dietitians can use it

professional is an oft term used to denote,good or quality eg Professional plumber. One can be competent but it is erroneous to be called a professional plumber

• Not a protected title.i could call myself plumber set up now (would be rubbish though)

-cant be struck off -voluntary membership of a plumbers guild

It's all a bit dullsome, though, isn't it? Everyone has half-baked ideas about other people's jobs.

I am a nurse practioner with 20 years experience. I have a degree and have a practitioners qualification. I prescribe, operate and my role day to day is actually very similar to that of a registrar. I certainly consider nursing to be a profession. I think what you will find is that the majority of those who say it's not are the ones who are ignorant to the diverse and changing role of a nurse.

As patients or relatives they seen only a tiny fraction of the work we do and base their opinions on this. It's like teachers, as a parent i see only one side of their role when it is clearly much more involved and diverse.

Actually flowery I think the general public hold Drs in the highest regard (according to the surveys I hear about-I shall google around and see what I can find)

Im sure you are very 'professional' (you are a truely wonderful, kind and helpful person ) but I don' think your job self-regulates does it? That is held as one of the key characteristics of being a professional.

ditto teachers although they have the GTC they don't self regulate either do they.

didn't know that bout dieticians tis a shame really if asked I would have held a dietician in 'higher regard' than a nutritionist shame they have to change thier name in order to stop others from misleading people

I consider myself to be professional I am on the NMC register and am accountable to a professional body.
Most people I have met view nursing as a profession and it is usually greeted with 'oooh I couldn't do your job!' To which I think 'you probably couldn't because you didn't train for 3/4yrs to do it, just as I didn't train to be a teacher!'
The general public impression may be 'its a vocation' attitude, however, in reality as a scrub nurse I was respected by Drs, especially jnr drs who were learning. Without good nurses Drs don't function! They rely on us to communicate on wards about their condition, accurately. If we didn't then the patient would not get good care. In theatres Consultants rely on nurses to account for instruments, swabs, needles and other things that can be left inside the patient causing septicemia during operations and always take the nurses word that all is correct. They also rely on nurses to prepare the correct equipment and instruments for the op. IMHO this makes me a skilled professional.

Funnily enough most nurses IME don't hold Drs in high regard unless they have earned respect!

'to communicate on the patients' condition!' Although we do communicate on 'their' condition' as well

1dilemma

My point exactly. By some of the definitions on here I could call what I do a profession. By others I couldn't. In reality I can't see that it matters either way! What's important is whether I'm any good at it or not and whether I do it in a 'professional' manner, which is obviously different. Same for anyone I think, and I do think the general public spend zero time pondering their official position on whether or not nurses are a profession, or anyone else for that matter.

My observation about nurses and doctors was very very unscientific, just anecdotal having heard more whinges about doctors than nurses and lots of 'aren't nurses wonderful' comments, so more than happy to be proved wrong on that. My own personal view is that there are lots of good and bad of both, as of any occupation. My sense of the wider public view, if there is such a thing, is that nurses are put on a pedestal a bit and seen as wonderful and under-valued, which I think is not the case in the quite the same way for doctors. Who knows?!

Have just googled consensus is....

Doctors

Lowest MPs and journalists

Found an article about leadership and MPs most respect headteachers then Doctors unless they are labour then it's Doctors again

Found another one which puts nurses first but surprise surprise it's from a nursing mag

(UK ones do put nurses very high otherwise )

ha, you should worry - try being a biomedical scientist in a hospital laboratory!

standard convo;
so, where do you work?
In XX hospital.
Oh, are you a doctor?
No,
A nurse perhaps?
No I work in the labs,
Oh, you're a technician.

No I'm fecking well NOT a technician, I am a fully trained, know-more-about-lab-results-than-your-average-doctor, SCIENTIST with a fecking degree and all, and we are just as underpaid, under-rated and overworked as the rest of the poor suckers who work for the NHS at grass roots level.

Not that I'm at all bitter, you understand

Thumbwitch - I hear you. I feel your pain.

I'm an Oxford grad. who went into nursing because it's what I always wanted to do.

It's hard to deal with other people's ignorance and preconceived ideas.

Interesting thread, IMO nursing is a profession. I do think the roles between traditional 'nursing' and 'medicine'(particularly in relation to psychiatry) have become blurred.
As a clinical nurse specialist working in Accident and Emergency, I will frequently assess patients who have had no previous contact with mental health services and decide the most appropriate treatment plan, and then discharge the patient, often with no input from psychiatrists.
We are frequently asked for advice by SHO and registrar graded psychiatrists, this is also a common experience for my general trained colleagues working in A&E. Nursing now has a large academic component, not before time, we can now be seen as practitioners in our own right, this further cements the notion of 'a profession' in my mind.
I do however agree that the entrance qualifications need to be re-evaluated, I have assessed many students who having reached the final year of their training are no more qualified to tie their shoelaces than to 'nurse'.

Hubarbspong - what you say about the practical skills of final year student nurses really does not surprise me, but I'm sad that it's still the case. I did the first year of Project 2000 (Mental Health Branch) in the early 90's and found it really shambolic. Loads of naval gazing lectures about 'being a profession' etc and not nearly enough time helping us learn the necessary skills to be safe and effective. I would have hoped that they'd have ironed out such problems with the 'new' style training by now.

I've been out of nursing (SAHM) for some years but am hoping to return to study and practice next year.

I mentor nursing students. The reasons their skills are so crap are because their mentors are in no position to teach them anything. We are so overwhelmed with horrific nurse patient ratios that I cannot get time to even spend 2 minutes with my student. Then they get passed because mentors feel guilty.

I went in on my days off unpaid to work with a student recently and it really helped him. But most mentors are not going to do that, and they shouldn't have to.

Nursing is a profession and the training needs to be academic. It also needs to include a tough practical element so that clinical skills are up to scratch. But the situation on the wards needs to get sorted before we can help the students with the clinical side of things.