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C Arm
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12/5/2015 5:05:10 AM

Sue Shattuck
November 3. 2010 20:52
This is one of my pet-peeves in nursing. Seemingly anyone and everyone calls themselves a "nurse." My elderly parents speak of the "nurse" at the dentist office, and when waiting for an x-ray, I overheard a patient tell his wife he was waiting for the "nurse" to fetch him and perform his x-ray. I recently had a family member call a friend a "nurse" and upon further inquiry, I learned she was a CNA in a nursing home. As professional nurses, we need to make the word NURSE synonymous with only one thing - the professional Registered Nurse. I could also see a good argument for the LPN/LVN being called nurse as well, but when I consider the difficulty and rigor of a 4-year university degree (and subsequent grad school), I do not think one could compare the knowledge and skill of a LPN to a RN. When I was a staff nurse in the ER working triage, it was not uncommon for a patient or family member to talk about their friend or relative who was a nurse. I always took the opportunity to inform them briefly on the difference between an RN and others who are commonly called "nurses." Our profession needs to do a better job at defining the unique role of the nurse as well as the nature of our body of knowledge, which is vastly different than any other profession. Can you imagine a country where many people working in health care settings were loosely called doctors? Like I said - big pet peeve for me.
8/6/2015 2:46:20 PM