Re: I want to be a Nurse, not a Saint. The "Hero(ine)


yes, its a problem. i think it comes at least in part from the history of nursing, where nurses were nuns and monks, who gave up everything in this life to serve the poor and sick. those who were nurses were only nurses, serving the church.

the other disciplines in the medical world do not have this particular history, or at least not to the degree that nurses do.

it is not helped by the fact that one can be a nurse with only 12 months of education beyond high school. while exceptions exist on all sides of this education debate, it is true that if one gets a complete liberal arts education, the chances are greater that they will learn to think outside of the little box that we are used to as children.

yes, the days of Florence Nightingale are far gone indeed.

it ALSO doesn't help that unlike HER era, nursing is NOW a well-compensated job. sometimes VERY well.

it in fact seems to contemporarily be THE number one reason for people to go into it to start with. the further into the future we slip, the more persons it seems that are going into the medical field as a whole, namely RN's, who don't have as much as a "Hippocratic" PIECE OF CARTILAGE, let alone BONE in their bodies. one's who are far more pre-occupied with their own health than that of their patients.

granted, considering how much nurses are known for NEGLECTING their health, this would a GOOD thing....... were the health focus not that of their OCCUPATIONAL health.

i, after writing the original post, ended up going to the ER for a back problem that, while chronic, was very ACUTELY bothering me in a way that is abnormal.

seeing as this is an already-diagnosed and worked-on/up problem and I (made the mistake of having) went to the ER that is part of my Primary's hospital, what needed to be done was already written-out and simnply needed to be carried-out.

nope.

i spent ten hours essentially waiting for the "permission" of the various people involved, including several nurses, to get relief that i could have in fact self-administered via a quick trip to Walgreen's. as is so in virtually every OTHER country.

the point is, there is ENTIRELY too much weight put onto THE professions BY the professions in regards to their control of a person's medical care.

any GOOD doctor will tell you that the BEST doctor IS you, and that the role that they are SUPPOSED to play is one of a guider, not a decider.

and this carries onto nurses just as much. due to the micro-management of the system, nurses end up being the ones who usually administer the actual treatment.

often, they can be just as controlling if not more so than doc's for the simple reason that they try to exert control they don't actually have.

uh, i THINK i digress

some of this behavior is outside the control of the nurses, though. they have to follow pre-written orders sets, as they can not order treatments on their own. so if the patient doesn't follow the plan, everything is delayed while they try to connect with a doc to get different orders. they are pushed for time, and if they get behind, they have to stay late to do the paperwork. i see it more as a system flaw, than a personality flaw, although i do recognize the control freakish nature of some nurses. just like in all the helping professions, they confuse helping with control.