"feminine" jobs/professions.Nursing,childcare....are the reasons that they are paid less,despite generally requiring graduate qualifications,an indication of societal devaluation of "womens work?"

[MavisEnderby]

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LDR - its about proffessionalisation of nursing, which is a GOOD thing esp for women-dominated roles. And if you think feminists are nutcases, you are welcome to leave this board.

Goth - I guess what I'm asking is, why should nurses have to go to university at all? My view is biased because I mostly hear about nurses who happen to be dyslexic and struggling with the increasing academicization of it all - but who can do their jobs. Maybe I'm just hearing about the bad side of the shift in training?

HH - But why must professionalism be defined as the product of academia? That seems wrong to me, and I think it's rude to suggests nurses who did not do academic degrees were not professionals.

The name was a response to someone who called me a 'feminist nutcase' (I'm usually LRD the Feminist Dragon). I think it's quite nice as a sort of 'fuck you' gesture to people like that, but if it offends I'll change it back, just say the word.

HHLimbo - Not sure about that, I know there was a stony reaction at a recent police conference because there's rumblings about cutting their pensions.

As for the army, there are going to be big redundences, which is not great considering the problems many soldiers have finding work/ adapting to civvy street.

However, it does feel like the female dominated jobs are the hot targets and the media attitude seems to be "women wanted equality, so you have to work until 66 and like it - ha ha ha, you silly feminists".

SENs were great and a fantastic asset to any ward. However, that fact is totally irrelevant to the state of ward nursing today.

Most of the people you see dressed in nurses' uniforms on wards today are not nurses. The chances are there will be one qualified nurse on a ward responsible for everything that needs a qualified nurse. All those other people who look like nurses are untrained health care assistants (Well, they have a bit of training to do certain specific tasks). In one hospital I worked at, even cleaners wore "nurses' uniforms". It is a deliberate ploy to cut costs and confuse the public.

Just had to get that in, because, as a nurse myself, it makes me want to scream to hear people going on about uppity nurses wanting degrees etc.

I am a clinical nurse specialist and I have to attend refresher courses and study and pass exams on a yearly basis in order to do my job.

Sorry for thread hijack.

LRD - Look, nurses have always, always had to do exams (written and practical), essays etc. Always. The only difference is that schools of nursing used to be based in hospitals, now they are based at uni. Training is still 50-50 theory and practice. Also, the nursing role has become much more technical over the years, much of what we do now, were jobs dr's used to do. Also medicine has advanced, patients that used to die are now able to be cared for etc.

The fact that you don't see why nurses need higher education, but have no problem with, physios, radiographers (professions not seen as female dominated) going to uni, is absolutely part of the problem. Women are nurses, therefore nurses don't need to be intelligent, they just need their fluffy, womanly skills. Being educated is not fluffy or womanly, therefore it is a bad thing for nurses to have this.

This crap is insidious. Lots of people think it without even realising why.

Have they really?

I have to question this as my mother and aunts, who are semi literate and absolutely unable to sit and write an essay, came to England in the fifties to be nurses and did in fact do nursing for a few years. I simply can't imagine that they would have done exams, I don't think they could. One of my aunts could and did (she went back to nursing in the seventies) but my mum couldn't, she can just about write a simple note and that's about it.

Was it because of a difference in the structure of nursing? Could you be a certain grade without doing the exams but you had to pass exams to be a certain recognised level of nurse or something? Would what my mum and aunts have done been the equivalent of ancilliaries nowadays (or whatever they're called)?

Ah have just read 3littlefrogs post. They must have been the equivalent of health assistants or whatever, but they were actually called nurses.

Only one of my aunts went on to become a "proper" nurse though.

HerBex,
Up until 20 or so years ago, there were two classes of nurses: SENS (State Enrolled Nurses) and SNS (Staff Nurses).
The SEN trained largely on the job and a bit of classroom work and needed no formal entrance qualifications. It took two years to train as a SEN.
The SENs were known as 'second-level' nurses.
The Staff Nurses also trained on the job and had more classroom time; they entry requirement was 5 o'levels at grade C or higher. They took 3 years to train.
About 20 years ago, a new scheme came about to abolish SEN training and make all nurses staff nurses who had to undertake a university-based diploma. In England in 2013, ALL would be nurses will have to undertake a degree to qualify. In Wales, this has already been the case for about 10 years.

I think there are several reasons behind this:
Firstly, the move towards higher education for every job.
Secondly, it saves money. After all, nurses will now probably have to pay back the course fees like every other student.
Thirdly, I am afraid the powers-that-be in nursing are a bit up themselves and like to ply misery upon the profession as they are masochistic in nature.
The belief that nurses should be on a par with doctors is also something they've a chip on their shoulder about. Which is bollocks.
Nurses will NEVER be doctors because:
Doctors will fight for what they believe to be theirs; nurses will not. They do not have the self-esteem of the medical profession.They tend to love to be put upon, and, sorry, folks but no members of a profession fills out timesheets.

This bollocks about technology moving on and nurses needing to be more trained is misleading: times have not changed that much.

People can disagree with me as much as they like, but so-called academisation of nursing is ruinous for patients. It makes me angry, really angry, that the egos of those at the powers-that-be put mickey mouse nursing degrees ABOVE basic, patient care. It worries me, too, because one day I may be unfortunate enough to have one of these nurses caring for me. Some of whom cannot even work out percentages (you'll just have to take my word for this).

I always thought it is because they are services offered to those who are working in other professions. i.e. I am self emplyed, last year I earned 34,000 (£26,500 after tax) I have a childminder and a cleaner. I couldn't pay them what I earn because there would then be no point.
Although, that doesnt explain why plumers/ electricians etc earn more than me... hmm.... just a sexist world we live in then.

The only field of nursing where I have witnessed nurses stick up for themselves is mental health and, guess what, about 50% of these nurses are male!

Many moons ago, a close relative of mine had a friend who was a district nursing sister. One winter, the weather was extremely bad-really, really bad snow- so she was offered a 4x4-type vehicle plus driver to do her rounds. She refused. She expected to be seen in a good light for this refusal. Some of her colleagues were mad as hell with her- for they believed that THEY would not be offered this service again. This should tell you everything you need to know about the martyrship mentality of some nurses.

Its not the academicisation of nursing so much wamster, its the content of the nursing curriculum, according to student nurses I work with they do not get taught how to take a manual bp prior to their first clinical placement to name but one gripe.

I think a higher education level is a good thing as long as the curriculum content is right, I think being in the numbers and being expected to do the job towards the end of training is also good. Now sadly gone.

I have yet to see the argument that the medical profession is too educated so can't be caring and compassionate. In fact doctors (rightly) use their education to emphasise that they do care.
Time and again though we see the nurses are too educated to care and too posh to wash. Rubbish. They are not incompatible things. Far from it their are examples throughout professions of the two co existing.

So why is it consistently an argument applied to nursing? Is this because it is a feminine profession and supposed to be subservient?

The reason nurses have not the same sense of self worth is because it has always been traditionally female and subservient to male doctors. More like the very traditional husband/wife role. yes timesheets are filled in as applies to anyone under agenda for change, so apart from medics thats all HCP's. The code of conduct extends not just to in work time but also covers conduct outside of work. That is a sign of a profession.

Your example above tells me of the misguided martyrship of one nurse - not the whole profession.For example tellling me of one womans actions towards her husband eg doing all the housework with no help, does not illustrate how all women behave.

Thank you boysrock.

Wamster. You are nurse bashing based on individual examples. The plural of anecdote is not data. Even I, as a silly nurse know that.

But why should academia be involved in nurse training at all? I think nurses have to be intelligent people and have a good deal of common sense.
If the course should concentrate on anything, it should concentrate on subjects actually pertinent to the job at hand.
Nurses are given hours about the concept of dignity, now dignity is very, very important but if a nurse does not know this instinctively, why is she even on course? Yet, at the same time, important things like drug calculations seem to be missed!
The greatest irony for me is that nurses who have undergone this new training scheme do not seem to know the basics. I have no way of proving this at all, but my gut instinct tells me that a staff nurse who trained 30 years ago would be competent at basic drug calculations. I can think of one person I know who qualified under current training who passed course without failing anything who did not seem able to work out basic arithmetic.

As for profession, sorry but the NMC's push to have nursing seen as a profession via a code of conduct has really made be laugh (a bitter laugh, not a good laugh). Think of the nurse who whistleblowed on the appalling standards of care where she worked. What did the NMC do? Struck her of for breaching confidentiality! Now confidentiality has its place. Most definitely it does, but, really, striking her off for what she did?! Talk about not being to see wood for trees.

Every single person in this country should be concerned about this. Their health is being put at risk to fulfill some agenda of nursing professionalism. Not funny at f*ing all if you are patient whose newly-minted nurse hasn't been drilled to offer you a glass of water!

It is so peculiar. No one minds teachers, doctors, physiotherapists, radiographers, podiatrists dieticians, social workers etc having a degree level education, but when nurses do, it is the doom of the profession.

And that isn't sexist ?

Well then, GothAnneGeddes, I am not one to pick up on other people's grammar- we all make mistakes- but, if you insist on doing so, there should be a comma after 'as a silly nurse'.

No it is NOT sexist! My objection is based on human grounds. The health of myself, my loved ones and my friends is at risk because airy-fairy, academic subjects are deemed to be of more worth than the ability to recognise dehydration, sepsis in a patient or to do the basics like take a patient's BP.
I don't give a monkey's if my nurse knows about all the theories of dignity, I don't care about what some academic has to say about self-actualisation, I want a nurse who will care for me when I am ill!

Yes, basically. When women enter a job market that was previously restricted to men, wages go down - think of clerical and secretarial work: previously relatively high status and well paid but when women entered it in the 1930s it quickly dropped in status and wages. Likewise with teaching.

There might be an initial economic reason for this, if you expand the labour pool by admitting women then wages will fall for purely economic reasons however the interesting thing is that when men abandon that job market (think primary school teaching), wages still seem to stay depressed.

Basically, if women are interested in doing it, then it won't be paid as well as if men were interested in doing it - it's only woman's work after all

So what are you saying Wamster? That nurses should just know what buttons to press on a ventilator without knowing why? how to take ABG's but not know in depth how to interpret a result? Now that frightens the life out of me. Especially when senior nurses are guiding the SHO who has been left on their own for some reason.

Your argument does not make sense to me, you appear to be saying that because the current curriculum is airy fairy (and I agree it is) that nurse should not be educated to a higher level?
Actually it is the curriculum that needs changing, not the level of study.

The code of conduct has always been around, before nursing was seen as a profession it was seen as a vocation and believe it or not shit practice existed then and some nurses were bitches towards their patients. My Father was on an orthopaedic ward in the '70's. A time when nursing was not academic or "professional" but was vocational. He was a fit man in his 30's. he came out of there malnourished and with grade 4 pressure ulcers. This in the days when nursing was wonderful. Some of the tales of attitudes from the nurses are appalling.

Do you have any proof for these deep fears? I've been in nursing for over 10 years and I do not recognise the bogeymen (or should that be bogeynurse) of which you speak.

If you are thinking of Mid Staffs, the problem there was chronic understaffing and a management who did not listen to the pleading of their staff.

I didn't see where I picked up on anyone's grammar. I leave such pettiness to others.

ps; by the time I have finished with students they know how to take a BP and understand what they're looking at.

Now staff shortages and incompetent management is a whole other thread.

OK, boysrock perhaps we can agree that it is what is being taught that is wrong, however, a university setting is a place of academia and thought; it is not really about training anybody for a job of work- no matter how much people say that it is.
It would be better to increase nurses knowledge, but this does not have to be to degree level. I am thinking more of what was once known as a HND.

It also does the nursing students no favours. They are living with students who do not understand their shift patterns.

Wamster - Please answer why degrees are ok for all the professions I've named above, but not for nurses?

Architects, engineers, opticians also go to university to learn their job of work. Should they not do degrees either?

Are you seriously asking me why a doctor needs a degree and a nurse does not? You might as well ask why I think a doctor needs a degree and a road sweeper doesn't.
The answer is simple: it is because medicine requires a far, far higher knowledge than nursing does. You may not like this, but it is the truth.
The entry requirements are different for a start- 3 or 4 A grade A' levels. Nursing does not require that.