More Nurse Bashing from Dr Rant

I used to like the Dr Rant blog. Worryingly though, recently there has been a certain amount of Nurse bashing coming from here. Now, if this were Dr Crippin's blog, I would pass this over as he hates everyone and everything which is not a GP. However, I have been very bemused by the recent hate campaign started over there.

If you would to be a member of the public and were to get all your information from there, you would have it believed that today, Nurse's are only wannabe Doctor's who have abandoned Nursing. There would be some truth in that if it was not for one very large point: That's bollocks.

Yes, there are SOME nurse's who work in "extended roles". Argue the toss over at the Dr "Anti-Nurse" Rant blog, or in Dr "I-want-to-exterminate-every-fucker-but-a-GP" Crippin because all the crazed missives lack one point. The Dr's who have posted them clearly have never spoken to a real nurse. There are SOME nurse's (approximately 3% of the Nurse population) who work in extended roles. The true (and speaking as a student nurse in clinical practice) picture of ward nursing is the vast majority of nurse's are top end Band 5, Low band 6 level STAFF NURSE. Not "quacks", not somebody randomly prescribing, but your common-or-garden NURSE. Nothing fancy titled, you standard NURSE. Anyone who thinks that being a Nurse is somehow not glamorous enough misses the point that as a nurse you are the one professional to have constant hand's on care of the patient and the person in the hospital who the patients can identify with. I like that side of things. I like being able to talk to my 8 patients and keep them happy, give them a stay as comfortable as possible while giving medications, changing dressings, explain what will be happening to them on the ward, and yes, changing sheet's, commode wheeling, bed bathing and taking of baseline observations. I am not alone in that. I am by no mean's the only student nurse (or qualified Nurse) who does such a thing.

SO to portray Nurse's as being second rate doctor's to me paint's a picture which to improportional to the real world, and every time fails to acknowledge to fact that the few Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Specialists, and so on have undergone much rigorous training, and in some cases role's which still sometimes do not stray within a mile of a "doctor's" role (such as Tissue Viability, Countenance advisor, from my experience the Spinal Cord Injury Liaison Nurse's who were specialist's were there to provide a link to the hospital as an almost district nurse approach to see former patients and talk to them to see if they needed any more nursing interventions). The latest craze of Nurse DNAR is one thing that really annoy's me, as this was something placed onto nursing, not something that was wanted (and beside's in real term's I cannot see this being decided by a nurse very often save for in palliatve care in the community where there are few doctor's to hand. I have known situation's which have occured where there has not been a DNAR placed on a patient dying from cancer who would otherwise have a DNAR beforehand, but that's a rare thing).