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The "Nurses are Angels" Myth
Featured Author:
Marijke Durning, RN
Marijke Vroomen-Durning has been an RN since 1983 and although she has been writing since the mid-90s, she continued to work clinically until last year. Her passion is patient education and helping the general public understand the medical world by translating medicalese into real-life language. Marijke’s popular blog, Marijke: Nurse Turned Writer has been the catalyst for her career as she now claims the number one spot in Google searches if you type in “Nurse writer.”
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Marijke Durning | NursingLink
October 19, 2010
If nurses are considered angels and supposed to be all that they stand for, how can nurses expect back-up when the workplace is less than heavenly? How can they get support for demands for better work conditions and better pay?
Angels are gentle, quiet, and ever-present. But nurses can’t be that way. Sometimes a nurse has to be assertive, loud, and aggressive when the situation warrants it. That’s not how angels behave.
Nurses Are Selfless
When someone is selfless, it implies they have no self-interest, no concerns other than that of anyone else. Of course, in a professional context, nurses should only be thinking about the patient as their advocate. But this doesn’t make a nurse selfless.
Nurses need to take that break in the middle of the day to regroup, recover, and avoid burnout. Nurses need to take time off to take care of their needs. Nurses have to call in sick when they are sick – for themselves and for the ill patients around them. Maybe it’s this selfless notion that makes it so easy for others to dump on nurses sometimes, forcing overtime, refusing to believe sick calls, and denying requests for days off.
Just as we rebel naughty nurse stereotypes or sexy nurse fantasies, we need to negate the angelic nurse concept as well. Nurses are just like any other working professional. The only difference between us and other workers is that we are privy to some of the most intimate details of someone’s life. We touch people, literally and figuratively. But we’re human. That’s all we are.
marechols
over 2 years ago
24 comments
I have been single since my divorce more than 15 years ago. Why? When men find out I am a nurse, this is EXACTLY how they expect me to be. I tell them that this has always been my philosophy: Work is the place you go to do your job to the best of your ability to get the money you need to live your life. Work doesn't define who you are. That is personal. It freaks them out!!! Honestly!!! I am supposed to be selfless and giving and offering to run and fetch and do for them (according to them) and it is inconceiveable that I should want anyone to do anything for me!! I used to ask if they were for real, but they are conditioned to this stereotype, so they feel lke something must be wrong with me!!! aaaarrrrrrggggghhhh!!!!!
Merrily
over 2 years ago
2 comments
Staffing shorages abound as we know on a daily basis.. The is to make the universe fly into a glass of lemonade..Smile, wink, shug your nose and say something totally unrelated...as it's quoted in "Point of No Return", "I never did mind about the little things." ...and SMILE.....