Classes haven’t started just yet, but I’m meeting my new advisees today. They’re all pre-nursing students! The world needs more nurses so I’m happy to welcome them and inform them of the horrors OPPORTUNITIES that await them. We actually do provide a good structure for preparing students for nursing programs, and we also have an early admission plan to the Twin Cities med school/nursing program, so I get to share good news with them. I spent a good chunk of yesterday reviewing the requirements.
The bad news might be that we expect them to complete a bachelor’s degree in biology, so it’s a bit rigorous and demanding. But we all want well-trained nurses, right?
First lesson: don’t cross your arms and stare at your patients. It’s unsettling.
Do you cross your arms left-over-right or right-over-left?
As an outsider looking in, it must be brutal to be confronted with the many patients that don’t get better, people with neurological conditions including dementia, and cancer patients. Patients at the end of their lives. Kids with progeria, falling apart of old age before they are ten.
I work in health care admin, I do not really want to get closer.
Yes, most nursing is for treatable conditions. Until it isn’t.
Having had one hospital stay (ruptured appendix) and numerous extended visits (my parents, in their declining years), I’d say that while the doctors may do the fancy stuff, the nurses make or break the hospital. More nurses, better pay, more and better paid nurses!
In the 4th season of The Amazing Mrs. Maisel (fabulous show, BTW) Midge does a bit on how doctors rush in, look at a chart, sign it, and then rush out. Nurses, however, never rush, do the physical work, clean the bedpans, draw blood, and actually stay to comfort patients. This was in the early 60’s when nursing was a woman’s job while men were the doctors. She was questioning societal roles and wondering if it were women running things all along. For all her faults, she was a very astute observer for her time.
I expect the student nurses’ gender ratio to be the usual. That is, mostly female.
I had a younger sister who dropped out of high scholl. Hanging around a bad crowd. She quickly figured out this was a bad idea. She got her GED. And managed to get into Baylor College of Medicine and got an associates degree in nursing and became a registered nurse. She soon started very good medicine. She bought a few good books on investing and set a rule. 20% of each pay check was invested. She got marred, they bought a house, now paid off and just retired. With almost $1 million. Nursing can be very good career.