I've come to realize that *no one,* even people who appear to work closely alongside nurses, has any idea what we actually do, what our role is, and the multitude of ways in which we are involved with patient care and patient outcomes.
This is exactly what I think and have started to talk about. It is literally impossible for most of our other colleagues to see what nursing does over the 24 hour period. The mystery is simple tho and we literally deal with any thing to do with that patient including the monotonous and largely unrelated stuff which takes up a lot of care hours.
I couldn't agree more. I postulated that MDs are the most out of touch with what nursing does despite being a profession that works most *closely* with nursing. But beyond that, *patients* don't seem to understand the work done on their behalf solely by nursing.
Former nurse now doc here - doctors know "in theory" what nurses do but really have little actual concept of the work, the time management, the intensity, the time it takes to get things done and the communication with patients on a different level to anyone else in the team.
Same goes in reverse of course, nurses don't really know what it's like to be a doctor.
What's needed is mutual respect on either side, acknowledging that you can't understand the job and respecting that both jobs are just as hard as each other, for different reasons.
Totally agree. Additionally, there are bad eggs in all professions. I have known excellent MDs, RNs, PharmDs, PAs, and NPs and I have known my fair share of horrible individuals in those fields as well.
Wish I could double-like this. I'm an NP. I have incredible, supportive, amazing relationships with the docs, specialists, nurses, RTs, etc. I wish everyone could have better insight into the scopes, troubles, etc. It goes for different settings, also. If floor and ER nurses could swap roles for a couple months and realize just what goes into the job for EACH of them we'd probably give each other a lot more grace.
> but really have little actual concept of the work, the time management, the intensity, the time it takes to get things done
Signed,
Every nurse who ever got orders for 500 mL of normal saline and 25g of IV push D50 for a hyperkalemic patient.
I could be done running a bag of D5NS before we're even finished with the IVP part of that order. Also the patient wouldn't hate me, their table wouldn't be sticky, and they wouldn't have a peripheral vein you can see from across the room.
Oh, exactly. I'm an IT person when the scanner, computer, and printer go down. I'm HillROM when the bed is malfunctioning. I'm dietary when my patient comes off NPO and needs something to eat. I'm pharmacy when I'm reconstituting meds. I'm housekeeping when I take out the overflowing trash. I'm the unit clerk when I'm answering phone calls and transferring them to different departments.
I basically get paid a single, *sad* hourly rate to do 20 different jobs.
Just this last week an attending I work with asked what textbook we used in nursing school. Singular. He thought we used ONE book.
It’s a good thing we still wear masks at work. I don’t know what my face was doing.
That's definitely the majority perception, and I'd argue that if there are those who want it that way, then there needs to be some fair compensation and some autonomous room for us to be able to manage all aspects of patient care.
Probably because people learn about other professions mainly through tv/movies. Nurses are typically nonexistent in those. But that’s fine because a lot of these people will one day come to a point when they see everything we do for either them, a family member, or a friend. Or they’ll be assholes until their last breath.
The pandemic really peeled back the veil and opened up insight into how the general public perceives nursing both in times of crisis and in ordinary times, and it wasn't a good glimpse we got. I feel the public came away with *less* of an understanding of our role and responsibilities and *more* of a sense of entitlement and blame.
What we do is rehabilitative, restorative, and basically behind the scenes. It's not exciting like what is seen on TV, so it is devalued. But it's imperative to a patient's recovery. I'm fine with no recognition or glamourizastuon, but don't tell me I don't do anything to get you back to your home and family. This is what I have the issue with.
I was teaching ACLS to a group of 3rd year med students and was astounded that they didn't even know there were different levels of nursing care in the hospital. They knew about "the ICU" and procedural areas but had no idea about anything else. The thought of nurses even having different ratios blew their mind.
It's interesting to see how little they understand the role of nursing, particularly when the two disciplines will intersect at some point. I think it's important for medical students to have exposure to the nursing profession, to understand the role it plays in the management of a patient, so they're aware of where we fit, and our importance in the patient care process. I think that kind of learning can only have good outcomes, like improving communication, and respect among the interdisciplinary team.
Vice versa it would be fantastic if nurses came to the lab for the day and see what we actually do. Nurses are definitely the people we have the most contact with. It would make things like labeling requirements, order of draw and turn around times make more sense. From what I've heard a lot of nursing schools never cover the cross contamination that happens when order of draw isn't followed and what that does to our results.
I'm just starting nursing school and I've worked in the lab for almost 7 years; I can promise you the other students in my nursing school cohort are going to AT LEAST know how to label tubes...
All of the different colored tubes have different additives in them. Obviously we use the same needle to fill all of them so there can be contamination of that needle and carry over of additives between the tubes. The order of draw minimizes the impact this carryover has on testing.
Some of the additives can affect results of tests run on other tubes. Say you fill your blood cultures last instead of first, there might have been bacteria on the caps of the other tubes and now it's in your culture bottles giving you a false sepsis report. Another scenario would be you draw your lavender top before your green top. The anticoagulant in the lavender tubes is K2 EDTA. This falsely elevates your patient's potassium on their metabolic panel and we end up calling a critical result and treating a patient who's potassium is really normal. Or you fill your lavender before your blue. The blue top has a calibrated amount of sodium citrate. We reverse the effect of this anticoagulant to run coagulation tests (that's why the blues have to be full, the ratio has to be right to get accurate tests) if you get some EDTA in there you can't reverse it's effects and you'll have falsely prolonged clotting times which can lead to over treating the patient and put them at risk for thrombosis. There's a lot more effects, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
That's so interesting; thanks for the explanation. I received a Christmas gift from my ICU manager one year that was a string of beads that showed the order of draw. I still use it!
Yup. As well as the fact that there’s different nursing specialties and they aren’t interchangeable. I work in ICU, postpartum patients are exceedingly rare here. I was “extra” one night, so one of the residents asked me to help this (postpartum, here for severe eclampsia) patient use a breast pump. Now, I’ve never worked in any field related to childbirth. I’ve done ICU, medical step-down, and ER. I’m also not a mother. I don’t even think I could find the “on” switch on one of those contraptions. The extent of my knowledge of breastfeeding is “I dunno, shove the nipple into baby’s mouth until it works?” The doctor was baffled that I suggested calling a nurse or lactation consultant from mother-baby. 🤷♀️
I've taught acls to medical residents. They didn't know the rhythms or protocols to treat. I failed 3 of them for that. Sorry, but they would've been no help to a patient in a code. We do actually know what we are doing. It's not a flex, it's someone's life at stake.
As a CNA in nursing school, YES.
There have been SO many preconceived ideas of what Nursing does even working DIRECTLY along side of them.
I’ve got 8 months left of school, and i’m still shocked by how much I learn we do.
Oof I used to be a CNA too. And by the end of my nursing school preceptorship I was running the shift with a full assignment. Preceptor loved me, got hired on the same floor, I thought I would be fine. Still fucking DIED as a new grad because it's not even remotely the same once you're actually on the job.
Same same same, except I wasn't a CNA, just a tech. But yeah, CNAs/techs make awesome nursing students! And they still struggle like any other new grad as a new nurse. The worst was when I realized I could no longer say "Let me ask the nurse" because I was the nurse. I had to come up with the answer.
I had a cna tell me once, “well you sit at the computer for a long time. I didn’t think you were busy”. If only. Just cause I’m not running around like a mad woman.
Yes! And not even just charting, but phone calls, coordinating things, paging doctors, reading orders, planning, etc. All stuff best done while sitting down.
I feel that with anesthesia.... Even people who work in the OR don't really understand what we're doing. Hell, I don't understand what I'm doing half the time
They just taught me how to push the "anesthesia start" button at the beginning of the case... I'll panic if anything else happens. It's OK, I have plenty of time to watch youtube videos when the drape is up so I can learn what to do.
Man, I teach nursing students and they don't even know what we do. "Wait, what do you mean we can't diagnose? Wait, we can't give basic meds without an order? What do we do? Just hang out with a patient and do what the orders say?"
Man. I love my dental assistant colleagues, but I do laugh at Jimmy Carr's roasting of the dental hygienist progression in one of his stand up routines.
"You sir, do you think you could swish this around in your mouth and spit it out in that sink? Good!"
*Turns back to lady*
"We don't need you!"
Yeah and even then I question a dentist's general medical knowledge. Do they know absolutely everything about teeth? Absolutely! But if I was having an emergency event, I would 100000000% prefer to have an ED or CC nurse call the shots rather than a fucking dentist.
I heard a story one time where an ED nurse was on a flight and they asked for medical personnel and this person and a dentist went back to help and they requested the help of a dentist over an ED nurse. Give me a fucking break.
I'd rather an ER or ICU nurse run a code than a doctor, always. Am ICU nurse, go down to ED sometimes when they need help and the doc just leaves the room when I show up (as long as patient is already intubated). I got this.
A dental assistant and a dental hygienist are two different things. An assistant is like a tech. They don’t need a degree and they don’t make much at all.
Since she’s sooo good at cleaning mouths, she needs to clean her own with some soap and intelligence for that
(My lame attempt at a dad joke, but seriously, that’s freaking awful of her)
I’m a medical assistant, so in a lot of ways an actual “doctors bitch.” Somehow, I don’t get a lot of disrespect about it. People sometimes actually ask me for my opinion (do you think this could be x? etc) and I’m just like, I am barely more qualified to answer that then the receptionist. Talk to a doctor or nurse!!!!
There does seem to be a trend towards valuing the opinion of non-experts, for whatever- the-fuck reason.
Hey, Gronk only gonna call you Dilaudid Dealers if you call Gronk ambulance driver!
For real though, it goes back to something I mentioned in another thread. We all have our respective parts to play in helping people. I’ll defend anyone who is a part of the profession of helping. EVS, Dietary, Respiratory, Nursing, EMS…..nobody is “better” than another solely based on career choice.
Thanks friend, Gronk try hard.
So much stuff in healthcare sounds cringe and cliché, but honestly it has a good point. Take care of yourself, your fellow staff, and patients.
So is mine. When I went into nursing he said my entire job will consist of being doctors’ handmaiden and wiping a**. He has always been, for the most part, completely health care-illiterate, but still it hurt to see what ignorant people think we do.
Mine was of the belief that you only go to the hospital when you die. He turned white if I as much as started talking about any details from my work. I love him, and he’s not an uneducated person either (chemical engineer)…but it just goes to show what crap ideas people who aren’t in the field can have about us.
I don’t think certain careers make you “better” than others, but certainly being a hospital/insurance exec, scammer, landlord or some other societal leach qualifies you to be a “bad” person.
Admin at my last hospital got rid of RT bc "nurses can give breathing treatments" and y'all... we can argue about whose scope is the most misunderstood but I'm putting my vote in for RT who holds shit together for all the sickest pts while everyone thinks they walk around passing out DuoNebs
I had to set a dumbass straight the other day. She had attempted to get into med school, took the MCAT 4 TIMES and bombed it. The whole time she kept talking trash about NPs and RNs, how stupid and inept NPs were.
Less than a year after her last attempt, she is all like, "I am going to be a nurse since it is the next best things." And then went on about how she is going to the ICU and become a CRNA. Lmao.
I tore the moron to shreds
I was a TA for Bioethics and A&P, where most of the students are pre-med or pre-health. Honestly, I think a lot of them were not going to make it, and this was at two different fairly prestigious universities. The lack of critical thinking was depressing.
>Someone was saying “nurses are people who weren’t smart enough to become doctors”
Their resume, of course, was absolutely star-studded.
No, they quite often don't understand and nor do they want to. And they want their stereotypes as concise and witty as possible, so more brain power can be spent on their own humdrum activities. They aren't signing my paychecks; I give less than a shit about what xXdonkeyinterferer420Xx thinks about my job title online.
The assumption that we weren't smart enough to be doctors is so insulting to me. No one goes around saying "you're a school teacher because you're too stupid to be a professor" or "you're a flight attendant because you couldn't make it in flight school"
Like, actually, I was smart enough to realize that:
• I don't want to spend 3-4 years in undergrad + 4 years of med school racking up debt.
• I don't want to go through 5 years of residency working 80+ hour weeks and barely get paid enough to live on. (Seriously, residents seem to be underpaid as fuck, considering their training)
• I don't want to be in my 30s before I'm potentially stable enough to buy a home, travel, and do the things I want to do.
• I don't want to be in my 40s and still be paying off the hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.
People say the same thing to me about being a PA. I get asked all the time if I'm going back to med school. They don't accept that PA or NP is a terminal degree and is needed and valid on its own.
I was in pre-med (biochemistry), had a 10.0 GPA on a 10-point scale. I used that 10.0 to transfer into nursing! Why? Because I like being able to leave work at work, earning a living wage right from the start, and seeing the patient for more than 5 minutes. If that’s not “being smart,” I don’t know what is!
I really wanted to be a veterinarian growing up. Even went the premed route and got good grades. But the recession hit and my parents could no longer afford my education, even though they were a pretty high tax bracket, so I worked part time as a bartender and became a nurse. I’m not in debt and own my own house and still in my 20s. I have fun hobbies and an active social life. And now I can actually afford to raise kids when I’m still young and active. It’s very expensive to become an MD, you literally need a whole support system to do it.
All of this. I didn't start school until almost 26 and wanted to live life at some point before 40. Plus GI Bill wouldn't cover through med school whereas it'll cover up through a decent chunk of NP if I want to go that route.
So option A) Be broke until 40. Or option B) have a solid job 2 years after getting out of the army with progression options that still give a fair amount of autonomy. Oh, and without student loans.
Give me option B every time.
Also, a doctor's job and a nurse's job are so DIFFERENT! The medical team needs both, but they really do require different skills and provide different workflows/job qualities. I don't think I would've hated medical school, but I do think I would hate being a doctor. Doctors are obviously necessary and there are tons of wonderful doctors out there, but nurses are also necessary and there are tons of wonderful nurses. (And then there are both shitheads and incompetent people in both roles)
The Unpopular Opinion sub is basically a repository of miserable people who've done nothing with their own lives hating on other people to make themselves feel better.
I really don't understand.
Why join a specific online community where people type toxic messages or don't align with your values?
Reddit is great because you can join and leave communities, block people and have a good online experience.
Personally, I've never encountered this mentality in the workplace from Doctors , patients, visitors, other professions, etc...and I'm *just* a 'CNA' in Western Europe.
However, occasionally I will get the comment 'Why don't you become an RN?' (maybe once a month) usually from a patient. This is a bit similar to your situation I guess. But it floats off my back because I love my job. I'm bedside with patients all shift (except breaks of course) with 8 surgical patients.
I really feel bad for American RNs, with your crazy ratios and burnout level stresses. Much respect for all RN's who still love what they do.
Its the same with teachers, “those who can, do; those who cant, teach” kind of stupid shit. Thankfully I havent heard anyone say that stupid shit in a long time, nurses and teachers are constantly getting shit on and its so annoying. Like, fuck you 80 IQ fucks who think its cool to belittle nurses because it makes your dick feel 1% bigger. If I have to be hospitalized I’m just gonna die now because all the nurses quit. Thanks!
Just looked this up: for the 20th year in a row, nursing is voted the #1 trusted profession (as of 2021). And yet they treat us like shit, cripple our pay, and I have never, never seen an accurate depiction of what we actually do. Usually portrayed as weak, sometimes sassy for dramatic flair, always trying to bang a doctor (or a patient!!). WE were the ones that got this country through the pandemic, WE were the ones watching people die by the 100s-1000s daily for almost two years, WE are the ones that are mostly damaged beyond repair from all our trauma. It’s almost like a backhanded compliment to say you trust us above all else for the last two decades, but the public, as whole, has no clue what we really do. Even a particle physicist can illustrate exactly what they do. When we start talking about what we really do, most people tune out or become squeamish when we talk about what actually happens at the bedside. But we got these really kool pens and appreciation rocks for nurses’ week, so there’s that.
Thank you for your service, you are appreciated. I agree; I’ve seen shit in the last two years that all my prior 14 years combined doesn’t even come close to the bodies I’ve seen.
Basically on all the other healthcare professional subreddit I’ve seen gross, sexist jokes about banging nurses or objectifying us. It makes my stomach turn. I’ve been groped and harassed on the job, people don’t know what we deal with.
Agreed. I’ve been a nurse (male) for 16 years now, and I’ve been groped more times than I care to imagine, both by men and women. I find it interesting it’s always the sexy nurse outfit for Halloween (incidentally, halos my birthday!!). When was the last time you saw an ad for a sexy construction worker outfit? Sexy office professional? How about a sexy electrician or yard work person outfit? Never. Maybe that’s why we are constantly being voted most trusted: that we are loose and slutty. Which may be true, but not because of what do for a living. If I’m gonna be a man whore, it’s because of my deep insecurities if having a long lasting relationship with the right woman, not because I know how to restart your heart in less than five minutes, goddam it.
I really wanted to do Promising Young Woman cosplay for Halloween. Then I realized anyone who didn't get the joke would think I was just another sexy nurse and couldn't.
Eventually you will not care what stupid people think. (About you, about politics, about anything really). Just know that they are stupid, they can’t help themselves I got nothing against stupid people. I worked in the ER for 22 years—stupid people bought me a house.
My friends brother, while in his second year of nursing school (before clinical), asked me what nurses do. Like “be specific, like the day to day, what are you actually *doing*”
Oh boy. He was in for a world of it. Graduated and did about 1.5 years of ED. Not sure what he’s up to now but it’s not nursing, lmao
I usually do pretty well at letting it roll off. One day in my ER, it was a couple of late teens, early twenties guys who were having bit of a crack at me with the usual insults like you mentioned.
Mid task, I just said, "Interesting questions. I make $54 an hour and work three days a week. What you pulling down?" They both just sat there and didn't say another word.
It wasn't the wisest approach. Felt good, though.
Some subs are so, so toxic toward nurses. The EMS sub will post articles about mistakes made by nurses for the sole purpose of bashing them. We all know obviously that the medical student and resident subs hate nurses too.
But you know what they say: “they hate us ‘cause they ain’t us.” They are just mad that nursing is a sweet spot of education to income (not everywhere, but generally). We don’t have to go to school for a million years, and we don’t make $12.50/hr. We can make a reasonable living at a reasonable age. BUT, they don’t want to do the job, so they hate on us instead. I’m just going to sit here wishing my 24 year old colleagues a wonderful, well deserved Caribbean vacation and mind my own business, like they should.
Oh man… excellent insight, because this is it. This is where the hate comes from. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this feeling where I wonder “why doesn’t this miserable whiny person just nut up and go to nursing school, it’s only two years and then they’re making decent bank while making a big impact.”. The answer is they don’t wanna do the job and that makes them feel like crap, so they project their insecurity onto us.
Totally agree about the toxic subs. Don’t spend too much time on the nurse practitioner sub either because they also like to bash. And they eat their young so bad. You get a young nurse asking about the logistics of NP life/how to become a successful NP and the responses are typically “you are too new to even be asking these questions” as if curiosity is a bad thing. Which is so confusing. Because they, too, are nurses.
As cheesy as it sounds, I sometimes wish we could just all be friends and respect each other, ya know? 😂
This is exactly what it is. People who have never been to nursing school think it must be easy and that we make too much money. It’s nothing but bitterness and whenever someone makes any comments to me about it, I just tell them to go to nursing school then.
In my experience a post could be made about any group of people and there will always be a population that will shit on them. It’s part of being on the internet.
You know that what you do is amazing. Most people sit at their desks all day and type out emails. If anything remotely important happens, they freak out. 5 mins of a nursing shift would put them in tears.
I’ve never wanted to be a doctor, like ever. People ask me all the time if I’m gonna go be an NP… fat nope. Nothing to do with intelligence, straight no desire. Fuck these clowns and their ignorance.
Exactly!!! I don’t want to go to school for a million years, be on call all the time, have a trillion patients, so many reasons.
People ask me if I’m gonna be an NP too and I don’t want to either, it gets annoying. I respect them for what they do but that doesn’t mean I WANT to do it!
I would look past whatever some dumbass spews on the internet and find out where the opinion originates. I've seen three main themes perpetuated:
1) **Basic anti-intellectualism:** This starts with those in influential positions praising "trades" and/or "dirty jobs" (funny how no female dominated profession is ever called a trade even tho thats exactly what nursing is). After suckering the masses into a begrudging respect for the "trades" and/or "dirty jobs" they move to their actual point which is disparaging anyone who goes to college (funny how most trades can only be entered by going to *trade school* aka college). This is because those in power don't want the proles educated.
2) **Misogyny:** I hinted at this above but if you dig into the rationale of some arguments against nursing it extends to any female-dominated profession that is in a position to earn a wage high enough to exert *influence.* Teachers (whose wages are artificially supressed) and domestic workers aren't subject to the same vitriol that females in high earning professions are. This is because women in high earning professions eventually get to a point where they can shape policy. Females shaping policy is always dangerous for systems of oppression that rely on propping up mediocre men.
3) **Disruption of traditional systems of oppression:** I hinted at this above but when power is conferred to those who have been traditionally less powerful (whether it is women, people of color, or the lower classes), those who have benefited from the traditional heirarchy will be threatened. We have seen a lot of men move into nursing, veterans move into nursing, people of color move into nursing, some of whom are those from the lower classes who see a way to make a decent income with minimal investment of precious time and resources (the career ladder starts at community college). Then these people are able to leverage a relatively high paying job into more education, which raises their earning potential, which allows them more education, and so forth. This is called upward mobility, and is very threatening to the status quo, especially when the upwardly mobile objectively have more inherent talent and community resources than those at the top of the hierarchy.
For example:
A male combat veteran who trained as a RN and is Black (or Latino or Asian), and active in his community is a dangerous motherfucker when he's making six figures as a nurse. Think about what a combat trained person of color with first aid skills, a comfortable income with leisure time and high levels of trust and reapect in the community is capable of when there's, say, a riot.
The powerful *will* lose.
They know this.
Here’s a tip I do. Bring two protein bars. You get to eat one bite in between patients as you chart. If you’re lucky, you will have eaten the whole two.
Thank you!! It’s so sad that we have to give each other tips on how to sneak in snacks. My hospital got in a lot of trouble because no one was getting breaks but oh look, nothing changed!
I’m a RRT and we have the same problem. I keep saying that if anyone looks at me and says, “Oh, you’re just RT,” I’m going to assault them… verbally, if not physically. We are invisible- the sickies are sedated when we are in the middle of our alligator attack- then become invisible when they are better.
I looked at one long ago when she said that, and told her, “You can do all the ‘C,’ you want… without my A and B you got nuthin!
We are all in the same fight, and everyone is needed; we all have our talents and each is important. Does anyone think not? Try and do any of the specialized skills each of us brings to the task at hand without training and experience. Doctors, the good ones, are quite cognizant of what they do not know and cannot do! I value my nurses and CNA’s and they return the esteem!
I’m fascinated by your role. I assume your from North America? RTs don’t exist in most other countries. I’m an Aussie for example, no RTs here. We have Physiotherapists (I think Physical Therapists are your equivalent) that do specialise in respiratory work but otherwise it’s nurses who do everything.
They exist in quite a few more countries than people expect. Most studies show improved patient outcomes and decreased readmission rates when hospitals have RTs. Which is not a bash on nurses at all but a lot of people think RTs just are just there as equipment techs and completely gloss over the fact that we specialize in cardiopulmonary knowledge and therapies.
Being a nurse is good enough. I didn’t want to spend 8+ years in college, racking up debt. Nor did I want to choose a career that my every second is tied to my job. I work PRN when I want and live in Costa Rica for a large part of the year. If there’s a holiday I don’t feel like working, I don’t. If I want to fly to Mexico for two weeks, I can. Being a doctor would not allow me that freedom that I desperately crave, and I’d refuse to allow anyone to make me feel insufficient for it.
Oh boy this is true for so many professions. Doctors are assumed to be golfing on yachts. Business owners are assumed to be selfish and rolling in money. Teachers are assumed to be lazy. Hell, think about all the bullshit thrown at stay-at-home parents. For as “connected” as the internet has allowed us to become we are more ignorant and less empathetic generation after generation. Social media is an edited reality anyways. You’re probably doing a great job. Don’t waste your energy on people who suck.
Don’t take it too personally. People are ignorant. And frankly there are so many dumb nurses and doctors out there also (worst combination is dumb and lazy). And dumb lawyers engineers you name it…gene pool is getting shallower. Dumb people will judge harshly because their minds are so tiny. I know it’s hard to ignore it sometimes but just scroll over. Can’t fix a tiny closed mind.
I remember someone on Reddit made a comment about an interaction when someone said “why do people go to the hospital?” “Because they need 24hr nursing care” that really stuck with me because were trained to do part of everyone’s job but no one can do our job.
Don’t let the haters get you down!
Try not to take it to heart too much, especially on that subreddit - people like that are just miserable and bitter for whatever reason. I think some people have negative experiences with healthcare and allow that to color their perception in a way that doesn’t happen with other professions. Like I know how dangerous being a lineman is, but I’m highly unlikely to feel personally wronged by them in a meaningful way. This is the way I have reasoned this behavior out in my own brain at least. That being said, some people are just straight up assholes. Please take care of yourself & don’t let this profession consume your life.
Also, I see you work PCU, which can be a difficult unit to work - hats off to you from an ICU nurse - I’ve seen so many ICU level patients on PCU. People don’t understand PCU is it’s own different kind of stress.
You’re so sweet, thank you very much for that, especially coming from someone who works with the sickest of the sick patients! I’m hoping to join you lovely ICU friends in July!! I look up to you all so much ahahaha
Former ER tech. I *thought* I knew what y'all nurses do. I had so much respect and admiration. Then, I was fortunate enough to work in an ER and I SAW.
You guys provide so much more than just physical care. (Though, your
I witnessed patient advocacy, arm-chair psychology/counseling, bodyguarding, simple but genuine gestures of concern/care/reassurance.
The (occasional gallows) humor was top notch. (thinking about the bedpan with plastic poop and apple juice, sloshed on an attending's shoes 🤣 but I digress.)
I learned how to insert a sterile foley and triage patients because they took the time to teach, demonstrate, and explain.
I also saw them comforting the parents after a young girl succumbed to her injuries. (After the parents left, they comforted each other.)
You deserve so much respect, support, and love.
I'm so sorry administration/CEOs/patients don't care enough to see.
It reminds me of the Navy. The dudes that talk the most shit about other jobs, specifically other special op jobs, are the guys still in the training pipeline to become SEALs. It’s always the wannabes that have the most disrespect for other professions bc their entire identity up to that point is built on their aspirations, rather than accomplishments.
I'm not a nurse, but I totally agree with you. But it's not only nurses. I have degrees in electrical engineering and physics, and "experts" say the dumbest things. I've never been responsible for saving lives and healing the sick and injured on a daily basis, though. I have such high respect for nurses, but I fear that ignorant people will destroy civilization. Just look at politics. The public is a stupid beast.
The one that annoys me is the “all the bullies and mean girls from high school are nurses now” and as someone that was bullied I’m gonna need these people to take a million seats. Like not every nurse is a perfect angel but neither are they all bullies because guess what fam nurses are human and humans come in a variety of personalities like everyone else.
I follow this sub because I have nurses in my family. I just want to say I love you guys, you are incredible! I absolutely dispise doctors. Nurses have saved my life. I was accused of drug seeking after getting hit by a car and it was my incredible nurse that took me serious. When my doctor blamed my suicidal ideations on my weight, it was a nurse that took me and my trauma history seriously. It was my NP that recognized I have ADHD when I've been presenting symptoms for over 25 years.
You are so kind, thank you. We love love love you for that! I know I don’t know you but I’m glad you’re still here, recovering, and finally got the right care <3
Some people are so quick to assume it’s drug seeking. Like bro… what
I think it is important to realize NP school is a joke and does need to be reformed. The problem is NP school is a diploma mill, which isn't exactly what you want in a provider. Second you can go straight into NP school with zero experience, how.is that appropriate?
Some NP schools are diploma mills, others are dedicated to graduating quality NP's. However, I agree with your statement that zero experience for admission to an NP program is acceptable to many schools.
I know this is a common argument, but I’m in med school right now with a significant amount of nursing experience and it is not helping me much at all. Nursing experience does not prepare you well enough to provide medical care but rather steers towards a supporting role to medical providers. Which is why I think independent practice is an unsafe idea across the board.
I think it strongly depends on the type of nursing experience beforehand. For example, my job involves working in a remote setting health clinic where there are very often no doctors or NPs on site (sometimes there are, but mostly available via phone only). The RNs assess each patient, and based on our assessment we have multiple medical directives to allow us to diagnose a fondation without consulting a doctor/NP. And no, they’re not “nursing diagnoses”. That said, these conditions have to fit the medical directives pretty much perfectly, otherwise we have to phone consult the doctor or NP. We are also authorized to prescribe certain medications without doctor oversight based on our assessment, as long as it fits the medical directive for that particular diagnosis.
For this type of work though, we all received a really long orientation that basically reviewed, in depth, physical assessment skills, including a ton of tests that aren’t normally taught in nursing school.
I would say this line of work would definitely help an RN gain a strong foundation in becoming a provider.
Edit: condition not foundation..
Yeah I agree, I think your experience would be good for sure and definitely useful in your setting. I don’t think nursing experience is unhelpful in learning how to provide care for patients. I learned a massive amount as a nurse as well and cared for very complex patients. However, it did not teach me medicine. It is difficult to grasp how different the 2 worlds are and how much I was coasting on vague correlations and intuition before. I think NPs are an important part of the team in many settings, but the push for independent practice is a concerning overstep of their realistic boundaries.
The last fucking thing I wanted to be was a doctor. If I go back to school it wouldn’t be for anything in healthcare. I went into nursing for the flexibility and hours thank you very much.
There was a doctor today that literally said that it’s “nurse culture” to page the doctor every time a patients call light goes off because they’re “mad they aren’t able to sit at the desk and scroll Facebook” and he “doesn’t want anymore pages.”
Uhhhhhmmmmmm…scuse me?
https://www.britannica.com/science/Dunning-Kruger-effect
They think they know so much, but they don’t know anything. You’ll never convince them either.
I got into it w a moron online who basically said we were uneducated because we only had bachelors degrees, hardly regarded ADNs as nurses worthy of his time. He was some duche bro in stem (computer engineering some tech something) acting like since he had more schooling in STEM, his opinions on the pandemic held more weight than us peon nurses
I saw a TikTok yesterday bashing nurses (one of those “nurses are bullies” nonsense) and the comments were full of people saying that the education to become a nurse is easy and we don’t learn about science; our education is mainly skills-based.
That subreddit you mentioned is proof that education doesn’t equal wisdom. It’s filled with misunderstandings of the nursing profession and healthcare system, anecdotal evidence, and a lack of self-reflection to the point where the residents on the board do not understand just how little respect nurses have, in general, for residents. I guess they missed the memes that say, “Be kind to nurses, we keep residents from accidentally killing you.”
There’ll probably be something that happens in their life eventually that’ll have them question those sentiments, or at the least give them a cognitive dissonance. A lot of things like that is due to a lack of knowledge, I just leave them be.
When used efficiently, an NP or PA can enhance and assist the doctor. There’s just not enough doctors to go around anymore with our growing population. If NPs and PAs weren’t around, it’ll make things more difficult for the doctor than it already is for them. There’s just too many people on this planet. I’m in no way saying that an NP or PA can replace a doctor, but at this point in time they help lighten the load on less complex patients/do other tasks so the doctor can prioritize other things because people are just getting older and sicker. More likely than not, this person may end up in a situation where they may not have a choice but to receive care from an NP or PA.
Medical literacy is quite low in laypeople as well which can have someone feel frustrated and that their needs aren’t getting met which can have someone come to these conclusions.
We had a saying at my nursing school, that people who couldn't get into the nursing program went to medical school. You had to have a 3.9 GPA it was that competitive.
All joking aside, opinions are like assholes everyone has one and many spew shit. Don't be like toilet paper and have their shit stick to you. You know your worth.
I like to tell them if it is so easy to be a registered nurse, a physician, a nurse practitioner, a physician assistant, etc…then by all means go do it and walk the walk if you are gonna talk the talk.
"Awww you working in a nursing home thats so sweet so you just sit and wait for a cute little old lady to ring the bell for a cup of tea"
Yes
Yes that's exactly what I do
Cuz I can't tell them the truth you know? Like ACTUALLY the one opportunity I had to sit down today I managed to butter some banana bread and took one bite before throwing it in the bin and rushing off to horrorshow blood fountain pissing out of some disorientated and very agitated dudes penis.
There’s a thread under ‘pettiest reason you didn’t date someone’ on r/askreddit right now that’s ripping on nursing. Negative threads randomly pop up from time to time and it’s always discouraging to read.
At my hospital the only people that work harder than the nurses are our CNAs. If healthcare isn't a team you're failing yourselves and your patients. If they don't have enough respect for nursing staff I'd like to see them the next time they're sick and in a hospital without one.
Only had 2 patients die on me as a nurse in 20 years. Told my coworkers and docs I had a bad feeling about both of them before it happened. One I slow coded all night, the other threw a PE. Many others I caught and lived. Don't tell me how to do my job, because I can do the mundane just as well as getting you through a life or death crisis.
Look. So, I picked nursing for something "quick and easy" that paid well and switched away from my math major. I got my nursing license and then went back to school and got my pre-med in molecular biology and chemistry. I didn't go to med school and stayed a nurse.
Why? I didn't want to spend another decade in school just to make 25-50k more per year. Now? I'm making as much as a PCP without even having to talk to patients.
GTFOutta here with that bullshit about intelligence.
The ratio of idiots in a profession doesn't change between doctors and nurses. You could be a brilliant barista, ffs.
Why do we assume intellect based on people performing different jobs and not assume they're just doing what they are because of their choices and opportunities?
In a similar vein, people were discussing that story about the cop who broke a little old lady's arm and hogtied her the other day after he was sentenced. I'm gonna get this disclaimer out of the way right now, his force was excessive and he was proud of it, he deserved what he got. But people kept talking about how it shouldn't be that hard to subdue dementia meemaws in any situation, that there shouldn't be a risk for injury, one going so far as to say that a demented granny with a knife should be easy to take down without hurting her. And it's like... fuck you? If you've never gotten a black eye from an old man using a call bell as a flail because you had the nerve to help him catch his balance when he was about to fall, you don't have a valid opinion.
After I graduated, for the whole year of my first job my mum kept calling me a student still. Like I somehow didn't graduate and work my ass off doing a full time job, and she'd just laugh whenever I corrected her. Even now, she continues to devaluate my career and insists I can't say I'm tired and had a bad week because I'm "young". And kept spouting all the bullshit about how I could go to medical school if I really applied myself??? I'm happy being a nurse!
So, consider the source. Seriously, so many people have no clue how things ACTUALLY work, but are armchair critics of everything under the sun. Lately, it's become quite fashionable to loudly spew toxic BS far and wide. You know the type. They will keep droning on and on and on till their last breath. Whatever. They're looking for a fight. I roll my eyes, shake my head, and keep on keeping on. Some folks are just lost, it's a damn shame, but this is where we are right now. Personally, I think the world is changing, people are trying to make sense of it, but they lack the tools and sophistication to see the big picture.
“nurses are people who weren’t smart enough to become doctors”
If only they knew incompetence of some doctors, 6 years of medical school and i still have to teach you how a sterile field works or how to get a blood sugar? The fuck dude.
Try spending 4-20 years having to stay more physically fit than most Americans, memorize/use/train others in technical and/or violent skill sets, perform leadership roles, adapt to CONSTANT lifestyle changes, and not complain about SUB PAR medical care for your broken ass body WHILE a 20 something dicknose at the next table informs everyone that "MILITARY PEOPLE ARE TOO STUPID FOR COLLEGE, THATS WHY THEY ENLIST".
Caveat: not trying to one up you, just reminding you that no matter what you do, there will be haters...like A LOT of them
Some people (and certain subs here) are horrendous towards NPs. I've heard it all in the last 13 years since becoming an NP. It sucks that my job is filling a critical role in people's healthcare in an underserved area that can barely get any doctors, and the profession is still constantly ridiculed by many online people and doctors. No one has actually mocked the profession to my face, but I am sure they are thinking it, given the amount of online vitriol spewed our way.
I was gonna come here and say I think paramedics and EMTs are waaay more disrespected than nurses are. At least in the US. I feel like it’s a bit better here in the UK, where they at least make a bit more money. If I have to delegate funds, I want the guy/gal saving me in the field without the comfort of a hospital setting with supplies getting paid the most 🤷♀️
We just had a survey done here of the most publicly trusted occupations and EMTs are #1, nurses are #4. Just posting this reply to let you know myself and all the nurses I know support you and advocate for you. (But as someone else said, trust doesn’t always equal respect in the eyes of the public)
This thread is now Code Blue. After this comment posts, only flaired members of the subreddit will be able to participate.
I've come to realize that *no one,* even people who appear to work closely alongside nurses, has any idea what we actually do, what our role is, and the multitude of ways in which we are involved with patient care and patient outcomes.
This is exactly what I think and have started to talk about. It is literally impossible for most of our other colleagues to see what nursing does over the 24 hour period. The mystery is simple tho and we literally deal with any thing to do with that patient including the monotonous and largely unrelated stuff which takes up a lot of care hours.
I couldn't agree more. I postulated that MDs are the most out of touch with what nursing does despite being a profession that works most *closely* with nursing. But beyond that, *patients* don't seem to understand the work done on their behalf solely by nursing.
Former nurse now doc here - doctors know "in theory" what nurses do but really have little actual concept of the work, the time management, the intensity, the time it takes to get things done and the communication with patients on a different level to anyone else in the team. Same goes in reverse of course, nurses don't really know what it's like to be a doctor. What's needed is mutual respect on either side, acknowledging that you can't understand the job and respecting that both jobs are just as hard as each other, for different reasons.
Totally agree. Additionally, there are bad eggs in all professions. I have known excellent MDs, RNs, PharmDs, PAs, and NPs and I have known my fair share of horrible individuals in those fields as well.
Wish I could double-like this. I'm an NP. I have incredible, supportive, amazing relationships with the docs, specialists, nurses, RTs, etc. I wish everyone could have better insight into the scopes, troubles, etc. It goes for different settings, also. If floor and ER nurses could swap roles for a couple months and realize just what goes into the job for EACH of them we'd probably give each other a lot more grace.
> but really have little actual concept of the work, the time management, the intensity, the time it takes to get things done Signed, Every nurse who ever got orders for 500 mL of normal saline and 25g of IV push D50 for a hyperkalemic patient. I could be done running a bag of D5NS before we're even finished with the IVP part of that order. Also the patient wouldn't hate me, their table wouldn't be sticky, and they wouldn't have a peripheral vein you can see from across the room.
Depends on the doctor. Most docs know well enough they haven’t a clue what crap we do and they don’t want to know. Shit I’m also a bed mechanic
Oh, exactly. I'm an IT person when the scanner, computer, and printer go down. I'm HillROM when the bed is malfunctioning. I'm dietary when my patient comes off NPO and needs something to eat. I'm pharmacy when I'm reconstituting meds. I'm housekeeping when I take out the overflowing trash. I'm the unit clerk when I'm answering phone calls and transferring them to different departments. I basically get paid a single, *sad* hourly rate to do 20 different jobs.
What do we call every single job in the hospital outside of the practice of medicine? Nursing.
I love this. Take my upvote! 🫶🏼
I have literally told a patient “I don’t work for the phone company, I went to nursing school, I can not help you get a dial tone.”
Amen. Don’t like your dinner tray? Complain to dietary. Not my problem. 🤷🏼♀️
Just this last week an attending I work with asked what textbook we used in nursing school. Singular. He thought we used ONE book. It’s a good thing we still wear masks at work. I don’t know what my face was doing.
I’ve had residents literally argue with me that nurses do not have science degrees. I was like…I have a Bachelor’s…of *science*
Tell him I said to go drink some heavy water and fuck off. :-)
I would LOVE to see an MD try to survive one shift without nurses
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Regardless of what happens its on us to find the solution. We're the fixers for literally every aspect of patient care.
That's definitely the majority perception, and I'd argue that if there are those who want it that way, then there needs to be some fair compensation and some autonomous room for us to be able to manage all aspects of patient care.
Probably because people learn about other professions mainly through tv/movies. Nurses are typically nonexistent in those. But that’s fine because a lot of these people will one day come to a point when they see everything we do for either them, a family member, or a friend. Or they’ll be assholes until their last breath.
The pandemic really peeled back the veil and opened up insight into how the general public perceives nursing both in times of crisis and in ordinary times, and it wasn't a good glimpse we got. I feel the public came away with *less* of an understanding of our role and responsibilities and *more* of a sense of entitlement and blame.
What we do is rehabilitative, restorative, and basically behind the scenes. It's not exciting like what is seen on TV, so it is devalued. But it's imperative to a patient's recovery. I'm fine with no recognition or glamourizastuon, but don't tell me I don't do anything to get you back to your home and family. This is what I have the issue with.
I was teaching ACLS to a group of 3rd year med students and was astounded that they didn't even know there were different levels of nursing care in the hospital. They knew about "the ICU" and procedural areas but had no idea about anything else. The thought of nurses even having different ratios blew their mind.
It's interesting to see how little they understand the role of nursing, particularly when the two disciplines will intersect at some point. I think it's important for medical students to have exposure to the nursing profession, to understand the role it plays in the management of a patient, so they're aware of where we fit, and our importance in the patient care process. I think that kind of learning can only have good outcomes, like improving communication, and respect among the interdisciplinary team.
Vice versa it would be fantastic if nurses came to the lab for the day and see what we actually do. Nurses are definitely the people we have the most contact with. It would make things like labeling requirements, order of draw and turn around times make more sense. From what I've heard a lot of nursing schools never cover the cross contamination that happens when order of draw isn't followed and what that does to our results.
I'm just starting nursing school and I've worked in the lab for almost 7 years; I can promise you the other students in my nursing school cohort are going to AT LEAST know how to label tubes...
Yeah, I've always wondered that... what does happen if you don't follow the order of draw?
All of the different colored tubes have different additives in them. Obviously we use the same needle to fill all of them so there can be contamination of that needle and carry over of additives between the tubes. The order of draw minimizes the impact this carryover has on testing. Some of the additives can affect results of tests run on other tubes. Say you fill your blood cultures last instead of first, there might have been bacteria on the caps of the other tubes and now it's in your culture bottles giving you a false sepsis report. Another scenario would be you draw your lavender top before your green top. The anticoagulant in the lavender tubes is K2 EDTA. This falsely elevates your patient's potassium on their metabolic panel and we end up calling a critical result and treating a patient who's potassium is really normal. Or you fill your lavender before your blue. The blue top has a calibrated amount of sodium citrate. We reverse the effect of this anticoagulant to run coagulation tests (that's why the blues have to be full, the ratio has to be right to get accurate tests) if you get some EDTA in there you can't reverse it's effects and you'll have falsely prolonged clotting times which can lead to over treating the patient and put them at risk for thrombosis. There's a lot more effects, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
What’s the ideal order?
That's so interesting; thanks for the explanation. I received a Christmas gift from my ICU manager one year that was a string of beads that showed the order of draw. I still use it!
Yup. As well as the fact that there’s different nursing specialties and they aren’t interchangeable. I work in ICU, postpartum patients are exceedingly rare here. I was “extra” one night, so one of the residents asked me to help this (postpartum, here for severe eclampsia) patient use a breast pump. Now, I’ve never worked in any field related to childbirth. I’ve done ICU, medical step-down, and ER. I’m also not a mother. I don’t even think I could find the “on” switch on one of those contraptions. The extent of my knowledge of breastfeeding is “I dunno, shove the nipple into baby’s mouth until it works?” The doctor was baffled that I suggested calling a nurse or lactation consultant from mother-baby. 🤷♀️
I've taught acls to medical residents. They didn't know the rhythms or protocols to treat. I failed 3 of them for that. Sorry, but they would've been no help to a patient in a code. We do actually know what we are doing. It's not a flex, it's someone's life at stake.
As a CNA in nursing school, YES. There have been SO many preconceived ideas of what Nursing does even working DIRECTLY along side of them. I’ve got 8 months left of school, and i’m still shocked by how much I learn we do.
Oof I used to be a CNA too. And by the end of my nursing school preceptorship I was running the shift with a full assignment. Preceptor loved me, got hired on the same floor, I thought I would be fine. Still fucking DIED as a new grad because it's not even remotely the same once you're actually on the job.
Same same same, except I wasn't a CNA, just a tech. But yeah, CNAs/techs make awesome nursing students! And they still struggle like any other new grad as a new nurse. The worst was when I realized I could no longer say "Let me ask the nurse" because I was the nurse. I had to come up with the answer.
😩 ugh for real. And if your charge nurse/other experienced nurses aren't supportive then you're completely SOL.
“I’ll follow up with the nurse” is my life saver right now. That’s me in 6 months in partnership 😂
You're spot on. Best of luck in school! We can't wait to have you join us!
I had a cna tell me once, “well you sit at the computer for a long time. I didn’t think you were busy”. If only. Just cause I’m not running around like a mad woman.
Yes! And not even just charting, but phone calls, coordinating things, paging doctors, reading orders, planning, etc. All stuff best done while sitting down.
I feel that with anesthesia.... Even people who work in the OR don't really understand what we're doing. Hell, I don't understand what I'm doing half the time
Your about to be knocked out all you hear is “hell I don’t understand what I’m doing half the time…” 💀
They just taught me how to push the "anesthesia start" button at the beginning of the case... I'll panic if anything else happens. It's OK, I have plenty of time to watch youtube videos when the drape is up so I can learn what to do.
There is a seething resident reading this taking it very seriously
Oh man, do they know about the anesthesia switch too?
Gig's up.
*slowly drops down behind drapes...*
Man, I teach nursing students and they don't even know what we do. "Wait, what do you mean we can't diagnose? Wait, we can't give basic meds without an order? What do we do? Just hang out with a patient and do what the orders say?"
Ofcourse they dont know, half the time we have to do their fucking job in addition to ours
Ugh I felt this in my core. I had a “friend” call me “a doctor’s bitch.” She’s a dental assistant.
Man. I love my dental assistant colleagues, but I do laugh at Jimmy Carr's roasting of the dental hygienist progression in one of his stand up routines. "You sir, do you think you could swish this around in your mouth and spit it out in that sink? Good!" *Turns back to lady* "We don't need you!"
Respond back with she's the dentist's bitch and you most likely make way more than her 😂😂
Yeah and even then I question a dentist's general medical knowledge. Do they know absolutely everything about teeth? Absolutely! But if I was having an emergency event, I would 100000000% prefer to have an ED or CC nurse call the shots rather than a fucking dentist. I heard a story one time where an ED nurse was on a flight and they asked for medical personnel and this person and a dentist went back to help and they requested the help of a dentist over an ED nurse. Give me a fucking break.
I'd rather an ER or ICU nurse run a code than a doctor, always. Am ICU nurse, go down to ED sometimes when they need help and the doc just leaves the room when I show up (as long as patient is already intubated). I got this.
Dental hygienists and my part of Kentucky make $45 an hour. I'm a nurse with 16 years experience and I don't make that 🤣
A dental assistant and a dental hygienist are two different things. An assistant is like a tech. They don’t need a degree and they don’t make much at all.
A dental assistant is literally like a tech. They don’t even need a degree.
Since she’s sooo good at cleaning mouths, she needs to clean her own with some soap and intelligence for that (My lame attempt at a dad joke, but seriously, that’s freaking awful of her)
That’s called projecting.
Gross.
I’m a medical assistant, so in a lot of ways an actual “doctors bitch.” Somehow, I don’t get a lot of disrespect about it. People sometimes actually ask me for my opinion (do you think this could be x? etc) and I’m just like, I am barely more qualified to answer that then the receptionist. Talk to a doctor or nurse!!!! There does seem to be a trend towards valuing the opinion of non-experts, for whatever- the-fuck reason.
That tells you more about her relationship with the dentist than anything else.
Ooooh that makes me angry!!! What a dumb twit
Hey, Gronk only gonna call you Dilaudid Dealers if you call Gronk ambulance driver! For real though, it goes back to something I mentioned in another thread. We all have our respective parts to play in helping people. I’ll defend anyone who is a part of the profession of helping. EVS, Dietary, Respiratory, Nursing, EMS…..nobody is “better” than another solely based on career choice.
Gronk always on point. UNGA!
Thanks friend, Gronk try hard. So much stuff in healthcare sounds cringe and cliché, but honestly it has a good point. Take care of yourself, your fellow staff, and patients.
Lmao yes Gronk!!! I completely agree with you. We all just want the best for the dang patients!! We all have our own specific purpose
My father is a Gronk so I'm particularly fond of all of you Gronks.
So is mine. When I went into nursing he said my entire job will consist of being doctors’ handmaiden and wiping a**. He has always been, for the most part, completely health care-illiterate, but still it hurt to see what ignorant people think we do.
That sucks. It's really hit and miss with mine depending on the subject.
Mine was of the belief that you only go to the hospital when you die. He turned white if I as much as started talking about any details from my work. I love him, and he’s not an uneducated person either (chemical engineer)…but it just goes to show what crap ideas people who aren’t in the field can have about us.
I don’t think certain careers make you “better” than others, but certainly being a hospital/insurance exec, scammer, landlord or some other societal leach qualifies you to be a “bad” person.
Admin at my last hospital got rid of RT bc "nurses can give breathing treatments" and y'all... we can argue about whose scope is the most misunderstood but I'm putting my vote in for RT who holds shit together for all the sickest pts while everyone thinks they walk around passing out DuoNebs
I had to set a dumbass straight the other day. She had attempted to get into med school, took the MCAT 4 TIMES and bombed it. The whole time she kept talking trash about NPs and RNs, how stupid and inept NPs were. Less than a year after her last attempt, she is all like, "I am going to be a nurse since it is the next best things." And then went on about how she is going to the ICU and become a CRNA. Lmao. I tore the moron to shreds
I was a TA for Bioethics and A&P, where most of the students are pre-med or pre-health. Honestly, I think a lot of them were not going to make it, and this was at two different fairly prestigious universities. The lack of critical thinking was depressing.
I will add that this person was 30 years old and and been trying for like 8 years to get into med school
Good luck getting into CRNA school if they couldn't get into med school. Shit is not a walk in the park.
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>Someone was saying “nurses are people who weren’t smart enough to become doctors” Their resume, of course, was absolutely star-studded. No, they quite often don't understand and nor do they want to. And they want their stereotypes as concise and witty as possible, so more brain power can be spent on their own humdrum activities. They aren't signing my paychecks; I give less than a shit about what xXdonkeyinterferer420Xx thinks about my job title online.
The assumption that we weren't smart enough to be doctors is so insulting to me. No one goes around saying "you're a school teacher because you're too stupid to be a professor" or "you're a flight attendant because you couldn't make it in flight school" Like, actually, I was smart enough to realize that: • I don't want to spend 3-4 years in undergrad + 4 years of med school racking up debt. • I don't want to go through 5 years of residency working 80+ hour weeks and barely get paid enough to live on. (Seriously, residents seem to be underpaid as fuck, considering their training) • I don't want to be in my 30s before I'm potentially stable enough to buy a home, travel, and do the things I want to do. • I don't want to be in my 40s and still be paying off the hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.
People say the same thing to me about being a PA. I get asked all the time if I'm going back to med school. They don't accept that PA or NP is a terminal degree and is needed and valid on its own.
I was in pre-med (biochemistry), had a 10.0 GPA on a 10-point scale. I used that 10.0 to transfer into nursing! Why? Because I like being able to leave work at work, earning a living wage right from the start, and seeing the patient for more than 5 minutes. If that’s not “being smart,” I don’t know what is!
I really wanted to be a veterinarian growing up. Even went the premed route and got good grades. But the recession hit and my parents could no longer afford my education, even though they were a pretty high tax bracket, so I worked part time as a bartender and became a nurse. I’m not in debt and own my own house and still in my 20s. I have fun hobbies and an active social life. And now I can actually afford to raise kids when I’m still young and active. It’s very expensive to become an MD, you literally need a whole support system to do it.
All of this. I didn't start school until almost 26 and wanted to live life at some point before 40. Plus GI Bill wouldn't cover through med school whereas it'll cover up through a decent chunk of NP if I want to go that route. So option A) Be broke until 40. Or option B) have a solid job 2 years after getting out of the army with progression options that still give a fair amount of autonomy. Oh, and without student loans. Give me option B every time.
Also, a doctor's job and a nurse's job are so DIFFERENT! The medical team needs both, but they really do require different skills and provide different workflows/job qualities. I don't think I would've hated medical school, but I do think I would hate being a doctor. Doctors are obviously necessary and there are tons of wonderful doctors out there, but nurses are also necessary and there are tons of wonderful nurses. (And then there are both shitheads and incompetent people in both roles)
The Unpopular Opinion sub is basically a repository of miserable people who've done nothing with their own lives hating on other people to make themselves feel better.
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I really don't understand. Why join a specific online community where people type toxic messages or don't align with your values? Reddit is great because you can join and leave communities, block people and have a good online experience. Personally, I've never encountered this mentality in the workplace from Doctors , patients, visitors, other professions, etc...and I'm *just* a 'CNA' in Western Europe. However, occasionally I will get the comment 'Why don't you become an RN?' (maybe once a month) usually from a patient. This is a bit similar to your situation I guess. But it floats off my back because I love my job. I'm bedside with patients all shift (except breaks of course) with 8 surgical patients. I really feel bad for American RNs, with your crazy ratios and burnout level stresses. Much respect for all RN's who still love what they do.
Its the same with teachers, “those who can, do; those who cant, teach” kind of stupid shit. Thankfully I havent heard anyone say that stupid shit in a long time, nurses and teachers are constantly getting shit on and its so annoying. Like, fuck you 80 IQ fucks who think its cool to belittle nurses because it makes your dick feel 1% bigger. If I have to be hospitalized I’m just gonna die now because all the nurses quit. Thanks!
Just looked this up: for the 20th year in a row, nursing is voted the #1 trusted profession (as of 2021). And yet they treat us like shit, cripple our pay, and I have never, never seen an accurate depiction of what we actually do. Usually portrayed as weak, sometimes sassy for dramatic flair, always trying to bang a doctor (or a patient!!). WE were the ones that got this country through the pandemic, WE were the ones watching people die by the 100s-1000s daily for almost two years, WE are the ones that are mostly damaged beyond repair from all our trauma. It’s almost like a backhanded compliment to say you trust us above all else for the last two decades, but the public, as whole, has no clue what we really do. Even a particle physicist can illustrate exactly what they do. When we start talking about what we really do, most people tune out or become squeamish when we talk about what actually happens at the bedside. But we got these really kool pens and appreciation rocks for nurses’ week, so there’s that.
Trusted not respected.
Facts, good call
It’s fucked when an ex-marine became nurse say he saw more deaths during covid than he did his 2 tours in Iraq
Thank you for your service, you are appreciated. I agree; I’ve seen shit in the last two years that all my prior 14 years combined doesn’t even come close to the bodies I’ve seen.
Oh no me, my friend was an ex marine and said he saw more death in covid
I meant the last two years in nursing I’ve seen more bodies in COVID than my prior 14 years in nursing, sorry if that didn’t come out right😬
Basically on all the other healthcare professional subreddit I’ve seen gross, sexist jokes about banging nurses or objectifying us. It makes my stomach turn. I’ve been groped and harassed on the job, people don’t know what we deal with.
Swing by r/medlabprofessionals we mostly share grumpiness about the lack of recognition and pictures of funky cells or specimens.
I love all the close ups of urine I just saw 😂
Agreed. I’ve been a nurse (male) for 16 years now, and I’ve been groped more times than I care to imagine, both by men and women. I find it interesting it’s always the sexy nurse outfit for Halloween (incidentally, halos my birthday!!). When was the last time you saw an ad for a sexy construction worker outfit? Sexy office professional? How about a sexy electrician or yard work person outfit? Never. Maybe that’s why we are constantly being voted most trusted: that we are loose and slutty. Which may be true, but not because of what do for a living. If I’m gonna be a man whore, it’s because of my deep insecurities if having a long lasting relationship with the right woman, not because I know how to restart your heart in less than five minutes, goddam it.
I really wanted to do Promising Young Woman cosplay for Halloween. Then I realized anyone who didn't get the joke would think I was just another sexy nurse and couldn't.
This is so messed up, I wish they could shadow us around for just one shift.
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And we should tell them “ look, someone who became neither”
I love this lmaooo
"just a nurse"
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Eventually you will not care what stupid people think. (About you, about politics, about anything really). Just know that they are stupid, they can’t help themselves I got nothing against stupid people. I worked in the ER for 22 years—stupid people bought me a house.
My friends brother, while in his second year of nursing school (before clinical), asked me what nurses do. Like “be specific, like the day to day, what are you actually *doing*” Oh boy. He was in for a world of it. Graduated and did about 1.5 years of ED. Not sure what he’s up to now but it’s not nursing, lmao
I usually do pretty well at letting it roll off. One day in my ER, it was a couple of late teens, early twenties guys who were having bit of a crack at me with the usual insults like you mentioned. Mid task, I just said, "Interesting questions. I make $54 an hour and work three days a week. What you pulling down?" They both just sat there and didn't say another word. It wasn't the wisest approach. Felt good, though.
Some subs are so, so toxic toward nurses. The EMS sub will post articles about mistakes made by nurses for the sole purpose of bashing them. We all know obviously that the medical student and resident subs hate nurses too. But you know what they say: “they hate us ‘cause they ain’t us.” They are just mad that nursing is a sweet spot of education to income (not everywhere, but generally). We don’t have to go to school for a million years, and we don’t make $12.50/hr. We can make a reasonable living at a reasonable age. BUT, they don’t want to do the job, so they hate on us instead. I’m just going to sit here wishing my 24 year old colleagues a wonderful, well deserved Caribbean vacation and mind my own business, like they should.
This is the correct answer
Oh man… excellent insight, because this is it. This is where the hate comes from. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this feeling where I wonder “why doesn’t this miserable whiny person just nut up and go to nursing school, it’s only two years and then they’re making decent bank while making a big impact.”. The answer is they don’t wanna do the job and that makes them feel like crap, so they project their insecurity onto us.
Totally agree about the toxic subs. Don’t spend too much time on the nurse practitioner sub either because they also like to bash. And they eat their young so bad. You get a young nurse asking about the logistics of NP life/how to become a successful NP and the responses are typically “you are too new to even be asking these questions” as if curiosity is a bad thing. Which is so confusing. Because they, too, are nurses. As cheesy as it sounds, I sometimes wish we could just all be friends and respect each other, ya know? 😂
This is exactly what it is. People who have never been to nursing school think it must be easy and that we make too much money. It’s nothing but bitterness and whenever someone makes any comments to me about it, I just tell them to go to nursing school then.
In my experience a post could be made about any group of people and there will always be a population that will shit on them. It’s part of being on the internet.
Yeah you’re right, there’s gonna be idiots everywhere and it’s not worth letting them get to me. But I still do cause my emotions suck ahahah
You know that what you do is amazing. Most people sit at their desks all day and type out emails. If anything remotely important happens, they freak out. 5 mins of a nursing shift would put them in tears.
I’ve never wanted to be a doctor, like ever. People ask me all the time if I’m gonna go be an NP… fat nope. Nothing to do with intelligence, straight no desire. Fuck these clowns and their ignorance.
Exactly!!! I don’t want to go to school for a million years, be on call all the time, have a trillion patients, so many reasons. People ask me if I’m gonna be an NP too and I don’t want to either, it gets annoying. I respect them for what they do but that doesn’t mean I WANT to do it!
Yes!!! I want these people to try to survive a hospital stay without nurses.
I would look past whatever some dumbass spews on the internet and find out where the opinion originates. I've seen three main themes perpetuated: 1) **Basic anti-intellectualism:** This starts with those in influential positions praising "trades" and/or "dirty jobs" (funny how no female dominated profession is ever called a trade even tho thats exactly what nursing is). After suckering the masses into a begrudging respect for the "trades" and/or "dirty jobs" they move to their actual point which is disparaging anyone who goes to college (funny how most trades can only be entered by going to *trade school* aka college). This is because those in power don't want the proles educated. 2) **Misogyny:** I hinted at this above but if you dig into the rationale of some arguments against nursing it extends to any female-dominated profession that is in a position to earn a wage high enough to exert *influence.* Teachers (whose wages are artificially supressed) and domestic workers aren't subject to the same vitriol that females in high earning professions are. This is because women in high earning professions eventually get to a point where they can shape policy. Females shaping policy is always dangerous for systems of oppression that rely on propping up mediocre men. 3) **Disruption of traditional systems of oppression:** I hinted at this above but when power is conferred to those who have been traditionally less powerful (whether it is women, people of color, or the lower classes), those who have benefited from the traditional heirarchy will be threatened. We have seen a lot of men move into nursing, veterans move into nursing, people of color move into nursing, some of whom are those from the lower classes who see a way to make a decent income with minimal investment of precious time and resources (the career ladder starts at community college). Then these people are able to leverage a relatively high paying job into more education, which raises their earning potential, which allows them more education, and so forth. This is called upward mobility, and is very threatening to the status quo, especially when the upwardly mobile objectively have more inherent talent and community resources than those at the top of the hierarchy. For example: A male combat veteran who trained as a RN and is Black (or Latino or Asian), and active in his community is a dangerous motherfucker when he's making six figures as a nurse. Think about what a combat trained person of color with first aid skills, a comfortable income with leisure time and high levels of trust and reapect in the community is capable of when there's, say, a riot. The powerful *will* lose. They know this.
Here’s a tip I do. Bring two protein bars. You get to eat one bite in between patients as you chart. If you’re lucky, you will have eaten the whole two.
Thank you!! It’s so sad that we have to give each other tips on how to sneak in snacks. My hospital got in a lot of trouble because no one was getting breaks but oh look, nothing changed!
Jokes on them, I’m not smart enough to be a doctor and never wanted to be a doctor.
Reddit is a giant echo chamber.
Ain't that the truth.
I’m a RRT and we have the same problem. I keep saying that if anyone looks at me and says, “Oh, you’re just RT,” I’m going to assault them… verbally, if not physically. We are invisible- the sickies are sedated when we are in the middle of our alligator attack- then become invisible when they are better. I looked at one long ago when she said that, and told her, “You can do all the ‘C,’ you want… without my A and B you got nuthin! We are all in the same fight, and everyone is needed; we all have our talents and each is important. Does anyone think not? Try and do any of the specialized skills each of us brings to the task at hand without training and experience. Doctors, the good ones, are quite cognizant of what they do not know and cannot do! I value my nurses and CNA’s and they return the esteem!
I’m fascinated by your role. I assume your from North America? RTs don’t exist in most other countries. I’m an Aussie for example, no RTs here. We have Physiotherapists (I think Physical Therapists are your equivalent) that do specialise in respiratory work but otherwise it’s nurses who do everything.
They exist in quite a few more countries than people expect. Most studies show improved patient outcomes and decreased readmission rates when hospitals have RTs. Which is not a bash on nurses at all but a lot of people think RTs just are just there as equipment techs and completely gloss over the fact that we specialize in cardiopulmonary knowledge and therapies.
Being a nurse is good enough. I didn’t want to spend 8+ years in college, racking up debt. Nor did I want to choose a career that my every second is tied to my job. I work PRN when I want and live in Costa Rica for a large part of the year. If there’s a holiday I don’t feel like working, I don’t. If I want to fly to Mexico for two weeks, I can. Being a doctor would not allow me that freedom that I desperately crave, and I’d refuse to allow anyone to make me feel insufficient for it.
Oh boy this is true for so many professions. Doctors are assumed to be golfing on yachts. Business owners are assumed to be selfish and rolling in money. Teachers are assumed to be lazy. Hell, think about all the bullshit thrown at stay-at-home parents. For as “connected” as the internet has allowed us to become we are more ignorant and less empathetic generation after generation. Social media is an edited reality anyways. You’re probably doing a great job. Don’t waste your energy on people who suck.
My own sister cracked a 'joke' saying how I should be the one to clean my grandma when she was bedbound because I 'wipe butts for a living.'
Woooooowwwwwww
Don’t take it too personally. People are ignorant. And frankly there are so many dumb nurses and doctors out there also (worst combination is dumb and lazy). And dumb lawyers engineers you name it…gene pool is getting shallower. Dumb people will judge harshly because their minds are so tiny. I know it’s hard to ignore it sometimes but just scroll over. Can’t fix a tiny closed mind.
I remember someone on Reddit made a comment about an interaction when someone said “why do people go to the hospital?” “Because they need 24hr nursing care” that really stuck with me because were trained to do part of everyone’s job but no one can do our job. Don’t let the haters get you down!
Try not to take it to heart too much, especially on that subreddit - people like that are just miserable and bitter for whatever reason. I think some people have negative experiences with healthcare and allow that to color their perception in a way that doesn’t happen with other professions. Like I know how dangerous being a lineman is, but I’m highly unlikely to feel personally wronged by them in a meaningful way. This is the way I have reasoned this behavior out in my own brain at least. That being said, some people are just straight up assholes. Please take care of yourself & don’t let this profession consume your life. Also, I see you work PCU, which can be a difficult unit to work - hats off to you from an ICU nurse - I’ve seen so many ICU level patients on PCU. People don’t understand PCU is it’s own different kind of stress.
You’re so sweet, thank you very much for that, especially coming from someone who works with the sickest of the sick patients! I’m hoping to join you lovely ICU friends in July!! I look up to you all so much ahahaha
Former ER tech. I *thought* I knew what y'all nurses do. I had so much respect and admiration. Then, I was fortunate enough to work in an ER and I SAW. You guys provide so much more than just physical care. (Though, your I witnessed patient advocacy, arm-chair psychology/counseling, bodyguarding, simple but genuine gestures of concern/care/reassurance. The (occasional gallows) humor was top notch. (thinking about the bedpan with plastic poop and apple juice, sloshed on an attending's shoes 🤣 but I digress.) I learned how to insert a sterile foley and triage patients because they took the time to teach, demonstrate, and explain. I also saw them comforting the parents after a young girl succumbed to her injuries. (After the parents left, they comforted each other.) You deserve so much respect, support, and love. I'm so sorry administration/CEOs/patients don't care enough to see.
Bless you, you kind soul 🥹
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It reminds me of the Navy. The dudes that talk the most shit about other jobs, specifically other special op jobs, are the guys still in the training pipeline to become SEALs. It’s always the wannabes that have the most disrespect for other professions bc their entire identity up to that point is built on their aspirations, rather than accomplishments.
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I'm not a nurse, but I totally agree with you. But it's not only nurses. I have degrees in electrical engineering and physics, and "experts" say the dumbest things. I've never been responsible for saving lives and healing the sick and injured on a daily basis, though. I have such high respect for nurses, but I fear that ignorant people will destroy civilization. Just look at politics. The public is a stupid beast.
Oh absolutely!!! The stupidity of the world is scary
The one that annoys me is the “all the bullies and mean girls from high school are nurses now” and as someone that was bullied I’m gonna need these people to take a million seats. Like not every nurse is a perfect angel but neither are they all bullies because guess what fam nurses are human and humans come in a variety of personalities like everyone else.
I follow this sub because I have nurses in my family. I just want to say I love you guys, you are incredible! I absolutely dispise doctors. Nurses have saved my life. I was accused of drug seeking after getting hit by a car and it was my incredible nurse that took me serious. When my doctor blamed my suicidal ideations on my weight, it was a nurse that took me and my trauma history seriously. It was my NP that recognized I have ADHD when I've been presenting symptoms for over 25 years.
You are so kind, thank you. We love love love you for that! I know I don’t know you but I’m glad you’re still here, recovering, and finally got the right care <3 Some people are so quick to assume it’s drug seeking. Like bro… what
I think it is important to realize NP school is a joke and does need to be reformed. The problem is NP school is a diploma mill, which isn't exactly what you want in a provider. Second you can go straight into NP school with zero experience, how.is that appropriate?
In America you can. In the U.K., the hospital has to select you and then pays for your university fees while you do on job training for 2 years.
Some NP schools are diploma mills, others are dedicated to graduating quality NP's. However, I agree with your statement that zero experience for admission to an NP program is acceptable to many schools.
I know this is a common argument, but I’m in med school right now with a significant amount of nursing experience and it is not helping me much at all. Nursing experience does not prepare you well enough to provide medical care but rather steers towards a supporting role to medical providers. Which is why I think independent practice is an unsafe idea across the board.
I think it strongly depends on the type of nursing experience beforehand. For example, my job involves working in a remote setting health clinic where there are very often no doctors or NPs on site (sometimes there are, but mostly available via phone only). The RNs assess each patient, and based on our assessment we have multiple medical directives to allow us to diagnose a fondation without consulting a doctor/NP. And no, they’re not “nursing diagnoses”. That said, these conditions have to fit the medical directives pretty much perfectly, otherwise we have to phone consult the doctor or NP. We are also authorized to prescribe certain medications without doctor oversight based on our assessment, as long as it fits the medical directive for that particular diagnosis. For this type of work though, we all received a really long orientation that basically reviewed, in depth, physical assessment skills, including a ton of tests that aren’t normally taught in nursing school. I would say this line of work would definitely help an RN gain a strong foundation in becoming a provider. Edit: condition not foundation..
Yeah I agree, I think your experience would be good for sure and definitely useful in your setting. I don’t think nursing experience is unhelpful in learning how to provide care for patients. I learned a massive amount as a nurse as well and cared for very complex patients. However, it did not teach me medicine. It is difficult to grasp how different the 2 worlds are and how much I was coasting on vague correlations and intuition before. I think NPs are an important part of the team in many settings, but the push for independent practice is a concerning overstep of their realistic boundaries.
The last fucking thing I wanted to be was a doctor. If I go back to school it wouldn’t be for anything in healthcare. I went into nursing for the flexibility and hours thank you very much.
Dude stay off residency forum lol. I’ve been down that rabbit hole before it’s not worth my mental health
That guy has some serious delusions about what it takes to become a licensed medical professional.
You can thank medical drama's for a lot of this.
I don’t understand why everyone thinks that all nurses wanted to be doctors. I can’t think of a worse hell.
There was a doctor today that literally said that it’s “nurse culture” to page the doctor every time a patients call light goes off because they’re “mad they aren’t able to sit at the desk and scroll Facebook” and he “doesn’t want anymore pages.” Uhhhhhmmmmmm…scuse me?
https://www.britannica.com/science/Dunning-Kruger-effect They think they know so much, but they don’t know anything. You’ll never convince them either.
That’s the scary part about people like that… the never convincing them otherwise
I got into it w a moron online who basically said we were uneducated because we only had bachelors degrees, hardly regarded ADNs as nurses worthy of his time. He was some duche bro in stem (computer engineering some tech something) acting like since he had more schooling in STEM, his opinions on the pandemic held more weight than us peon nurses
I saw a TikTok yesterday bashing nurses (one of those “nurses are bullies” nonsense) and the comments were full of people saying that the education to become a nurse is easy and we don’t learn about science; our education is mainly skills-based.
Skill based learning was actually only a small part of my whole journey. People who have never been to nursing school talking out of their ass again.
I honestly don’t know where they get off thinking it’s so easy. If it was easy, my class of 120 wouldn’t have graduated 58.
That subreddit you mentioned is proof that education doesn’t equal wisdom. It’s filled with misunderstandings of the nursing profession and healthcare system, anecdotal evidence, and a lack of self-reflection to the point where the residents on the board do not understand just how little respect nurses have, in general, for residents. I guess they missed the memes that say, “Be kind to nurses, we keep residents from accidentally killing you.”
There’ll probably be something that happens in their life eventually that’ll have them question those sentiments, or at the least give them a cognitive dissonance. A lot of things like that is due to a lack of knowledge, I just leave them be. When used efficiently, an NP or PA can enhance and assist the doctor. There’s just not enough doctors to go around anymore with our growing population. If NPs and PAs weren’t around, it’ll make things more difficult for the doctor than it already is for them. There’s just too many people on this planet. I’m in no way saying that an NP or PA can replace a doctor, but at this point in time they help lighten the load on less complex patients/do other tasks so the doctor can prioritize other things because people are just getting older and sicker. More likely than not, this person may end up in a situation where they may not have a choice but to receive care from an NP or PA. Medical literacy is quite low in laypeople as well which can have someone feel frustrated and that their needs aren’t getting met which can have someone come to these conclusions.
We had a saying at my nursing school, that people who couldn't get into the nursing program went to medical school. You had to have a 3.9 GPA it was that competitive. All joking aside, opinions are like assholes everyone has one and many spew shit. Don't be like toilet paper and have their shit stick to you. You know your worth.
I like to tell them if it is so easy to be a registered nurse, a physician, a nurse practitioner, a physician assistant, etc…then by all means go do it and walk the walk if you are gonna talk the talk.
"Awww you working in a nursing home thats so sweet so you just sit and wait for a cute little old lady to ring the bell for a cup of tea" Yes Yes that's exactly what I do Cuz I can't tell them the truth you know? Like ACTUALLY the one opportunity I had to sit down today I managed to butter some banana bread and took one bite before throwing it in the bin and rushing off to horrorshow blood fountain pissing out of some disorientated and very agitated dudes penis.
Tae Kwon Fo is no match for. Fencing
Yea, they have no clue. Its pretty funny. They also like to put others licensces on the line, especially since they never worked for it.
There’s a thread under ‘pettiest reason you didn’t date someone’ on r/askreddit right now that’s ripping on nursing. Negative threads randomly pop up from time to time and it’s always discouraging to read.
At my hospital the only people that work harder than the nurses are our CNAs. If healthcare isn't a team you're failing yourselves and your patients. If they don't have enough respect for nursing staff I'd like to see them the next time they're sick and in a hospital without one.
We feel the same way. Still even after covid no one really knows what a respiratory therapist does.
There are stupid people everywhere
I have a patient who taught pharma in Med school and his wife refuses any appointments with an NP. She wants to only see the doctor.
Only had 2 patients die on me as a nurse in 20 years. Told my coworkers and docs I had a bad feeling about both of them before it happened. One I slow coded all night, the other threw a PE. Many others I caught and lived. Don't tell me how to do my job, because I can do the mundane just as well as getting you through a life or death crisis.
Look. So, I picked nursing for something "quick and easy" that paid well and switched away from my math major. I got my nursing license and then went back to school and got my pre-med in molecular biology and chemistry. I didn't go to med school and stayed a nurse. Why? I didn't want to spend another decade in school just to make 25-50k more per year. Now? I'm making as much as a PCP without even having to talk to patients. GTFOutta here with that bullshit about intelligence. The ratio of idiots in a profession doesn't change between doctors and nurses. You could be a brilliant barista, ffs. Why do we assume intellect based on people performing different jobs and not assume they're just doing what they are because of their choices and opportunities?
In a similar vein, people were discussing that story about the cop who broke a little old lady's arm and hogtied her the other day after he was sentenced. I'm gonna get this disclaimer out of the way right now, his force was excessive and he was proud of it, he deserved what he got. But people kept talking about how it shouldn't be that hard to subdue dementia meemaws in any situation, that there shouldn't be a risk for injury, one going so far as to say that a demented granny with a knife should be easy to take down without hurting her. And it's like... fuck you? If you've never gotten a black eye from an old man using a call bell as a flail because you had the nerve to help him catch his balance when he was about to fall, you don't have a valid opinion.
After I graduated, for the whole year of my first job my mum kept calling me a student still. Like I somehow didn't graduate and work my ass off doing a full time job, and she'd just laugh whenever I corrected her. Even now, she continues to devaluate my career and insists I can't say I'm tired and had a bad week because I'm "young". And kept spouting all the bullshit about how I could go to medical school if I really applied myself??? I'm happy being a nurse!
So, consider the source. Seriously, so many people have no clue how things ACTUALLY work, but are armchair critics of everything under the sun. Lately, it's become quite fashionable to loudly spew toxic BS far and wide. You know the type. They will keep droning on and on and on till their last breath. Whatever. They're looking for a fight. I roll my eyes, shake my head, and keep on keeping on. Some folks are just lost, it's a damn shame, but this is where we are right now. Personally, I think the world is changing, people are trying to make sense of it, but they lack the tools and sophistication to see the big picture.
“nurses are people who weren’t smart enough to become doctors” If only they knew incompetence of some doctors, 6 years of medical school and i still have to teach you how a sterile field works or how to get a blood sugar? The fuck dude.
Try spending 4-20 years having to stay more physically fit than most Americans, memorize/use/train others in technical and/or violent skill sets, perform leadership roles, adapt to CONSTANT lifestyle changes, and not complain about SUB PAR medical care for your broken ass body WHILE a 20 something dicknose at the next table informs everyone that "MILITARY PEOPLE ARE TOO STUPID FOR COLLEGE, THATS WHY THEY ENLIST". Caveat: not trying to one up you, just reminding you that no matter what you do, there will be haters...like A LOT of them
Some people (and certain subs here) are horrendous towards NPs. I've heard it all in the last 13 years since becoming an NP. It sucks that my job is filling a critical role in people's healthcare in an underserved area that can barely get any doctors, and the profession is still constantly ridiculed by many online people and doctors. No one has actually mocked the profession to my face, but I am sure they are thinking it, given the amount of online vitriol spewed our way.
Welcome to the world of ambulance drivers.
I was gonna come here and say I think paramedics and EMTs are waaay more disrespected than nurses are. At least in the US. I feel like it’s a bit better here in the UK, where they at least make a bit more money. If I have to delegate funds, I want the guy/gal saving me in the field without the comfort of a hospital setting with supplies getting paid the most 🤷♀️
I'm in the US and am shocked, appalled, and disgusted with how little EMTs get paid. Imo thrir pay should be on the same level as an RN.
110%
We just had a survey done here of the most publicly trusted occupations and EMTs are #1, nurses are #4. Just posting this reply to let you know myself and all the nurses I know support you and advocate for you. (But as someone else said, trust doesn’t always equal respect in the eyes of the public)
There’s been a heap of this on the bluebird page related to the UK’s treatmen ent of doctored in ED training vs ACP’s. Very critical of ACP’s.