During the research for my book, taking a human look at the nursing profesion, I have run across many opinions of nurses and what we do. Both good and bad, it is still shocking (and yet not) how much people, including the media, do not understand. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I found an entry from CBC News Online (Sept 7, 2004) with these statements;
"They check your blood pressure, they give you pills, they clean you and they comfort you. They're nurses...".
If only the job were that simple!
A little later in to the article;
"...because of staff cuts in other areas of the hospital, nurses are often left juggling their own responsibilities with a host of others. They may have to answer phones, clean up spills, and clear away food trays."
Nice to know someone has noticed that we do far more than "give you pills", but this still shows an understanding that does not go deep enough in to the realities of what takes place during a 12 hour shift.
On my web site (www.nursesentry.com) I encourage nurses to write about what they do. I sadly get very little response. But hopefully I have got many thinking about the possibility. It is up to individual nurses, not just our registering bodies, or other organizations to educate people, via the media, as to how "wicked" the profession really is; wickedly difficult and wickedly powerful. I will continue to urge nurses voices in to the open and hopefully my own book will start to spark some true interest in to a profession that is like no other.
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