After the Angels: In Search of A ‘Knowledge-Based’ Professional Identity
If you’re looking for angels, you’ve come to the wrong place. So says GuitarGirlRN in her latest blog post.
One stereotype of nursing (and it’s perpetuated by nurses as well as by those not in the medical or nursing fields) that bothers me is that of nurses as “angels of mercy.”
We’re expected to smile while up to our elbows in bloody shit and vomit, be pleasant to rude and sometimes violent people, put up with crap from doctors, managers, patients, their families, nurse techs, and janitors yet keep our cool, never cry, never sweat, never lose our tempers with each other, always be prepared and be right there when we are needed.
Her point is that nurses are human; they do the best they can with scant resources, but they aren’t superhuman. They aren’t saints, they have lives of their own, and they can’t always be all things to all people. Back in 2005, noted author Suzanne Gordon wrote, with Sioban Nelson, an article for us called “An End to Angels.” In it, they presented the idea that nursing is a profession with a serious image problem, one that undercuts recruitment efforts and ill prepares new nurses for the reality of their work. The arguments in the article are subtle and thought provoking, and impossible to summarize. Here, anyway, is the introduction:
Nurses often disagree on the causes of and possible solutions to the current nursing shortage. Mandatory staffing ratios versus Magnet hospitals? Sign-on bonuses […]