Never heard that - especially from anyone who is supposedly educated and works in the health care field!

Very common aming non-healthcare people is the idea that the nurses' job is primarily bathing, dressing, and feeding patients, along with giving meds.

Basically, a lot of people think that a Registered Nurse does what is really mostly a Nurse Aide's job, and the assessments, calculations, patient education, and the other more professional responsibilities are carried out only by physicians.

I usually give them a long and boring lecture on how the situation they are describing is the way things were many years ago, but that RN's today are truly professionals, requiring a higher level of education than in the past.

As far as salary goes, I find that more people think just the opposite - they think nurses are paid just a little better than aides.  They find it hard to believe that with a couple of years' experience and some overtime, an RN (In my area) actually CAN make over $100 K.

I find that most of the new residents have no idea what nurses do or know. I think your typical new resident may have been sheltered in the college system, then on to med school. Even in med school they have little interaction w/ nurses, or the bedside in general. They spend most of their time with other docs or their doc professors. So that 1st year of residency they seem to be either suprised a bit at what the nurse knows or a total jerk and couldnt imagine that a "nurse" would know what they are talking about. Then I come across foreign educated docs, some of them are way out there-they shock the heck out of me sometimes. Usually by the end of 1st year going into 2nd year I can work with them. But before that, we all joke at my hospital, "oh no july is coming, all the new residents will be here. watch your orders and patients." And it really chaps my hide when you get a doc who is totally biased against nurses, its not like I havent saved their butts a couple of dozen times, they probly didnt even realize it!

Yes, I am aware some RNs make that. That's not what this particular doc was saying. He said MOST, and when I pressed him on the statement, he elaborated that 80% of them did. Which is bull.

ckrszka-well said!

$80 thousand is the minority pay scale. plus in some areas in order to make that much you are working literally all the time-me and most nurses i know have families.

it would be good if MDs had some way of coming in knowing what we do...could you imagine though what the med students would think when told "you have to follow and train with a nurse"...i think they would crap their pants!

I agree - Med students should experience the work of a nurse -

In fact, I think that all nursing students should begin with three weeks of working as an aide - too many students spend time and money on the academic subjects, then when they finally get to clinical...

Ewwwwww!

They realize patient care is just not for them! That's basically why my class started out with 61 students, but only 20 graduated. At least half of the dropouts were because of the Ewwwww factor!

The meds thing is the worst - especially with some of my older relatives. I wonder sometimes if people realize how much trouble you can get into for giving them this sort of "advice"

On the same token, my brother works customer service for Dell and our family always calls him to harass him for every little computer problem. I guess this is sort of like that, only if he tells them to do something and it breaks their computer they can replace it. It's hard to convince people that no, I cannot tell you what combo of meds is ok to take from a friend!