Understanding Nursing as a career.
Nursing is filled with moments that are profoundly meaningful and at the same time difficult to measure or describe. Nurses were referred to as the ‘backbone’ and the ‘heart’ of health care that cross all geographic and political boundaries.
A nursing degree can be used to work in or out of hospitals, in helicopters, on boats, and in the home. Nurse can work in military, at the National Institutes of Health or in the Parliament as senators. Nurses work internationally for relief organizations, large corporation, foreign schools, or community clinics.
Nurses save lives, take care of people who are dying, provide pain relief, do scientific research, run hospitals, and design computer systems. With advanced learning, nurses deliver babies, run their own clinics, provide primary care, and become lawyers in medical law. All nurses are teacher and counselors and, in one way or another, help people live healthier lives.
I struggled with my choice to be a student nurse and going to be a Staff Nurse soon. Promoting nursing is something of a mission for me, partly because I believe in nursing’s valuable service and partly because I don’t want nursing care, as traditional women’s work.
In reality it’s not easy becoming one of the nursing students especially degree students. It’s truly challenging in Malaysia situation. I’m facing a lot of difficulties and old mentality of people in Malaysia. Most people look down to nursing profession; they thought nursing is just about people who get involve in bathing and all those urine and feces of patients.
When I talk about nursing, I have so many things to discuss with you all but for this entry I’m just to give an understanding what nursing is all about.
Being a degree student nurse so tough because of it course itself and because of people’s mentality. I was very familiar with that type of questions “Why you take nursing” and “Why didn’t you go on to be a doctor?” ‘You are so smart; you should be a doctor.” (It doesn’t mean that I’m so smart, and it doesn’t mean that I’m tough enough to be a doctor, everything is in Allah's Will).
The truth is that, while these assumptions may be humiliating, degrading, and hurtful, they also indicate the extent of misunderstanding that exists about nursing.
Can you imagine the reverse? “Doctor, why didn’t you go on to be a nurse?” “You are so smart; you should become a nurse.” “You are just a doctor. When are you going to become a nurse?” Or, best of all, “Doctor, you’re so good with patients. You should be a nurse!”
The absurdity of these statements makes them quite laughable. It is a good indicator of how our society sees nurses. (Hope the doctors do not get hurt with this statement, it’s just example to indicate the mentality of our society)
Nurses are often viewed as being beneath doctors, not as different or equal, but as a step lower on the health profession or medical ladder. But nursing is as different from being a doctor as being a physical therapist is from being a pharmacist or as being a teacher is from being a guidance counselor. Teachers and guidance counselors both work in the field of education but with different roles and licensing requirements; nurses, doctors, physical therapists and pharmacists also work in the same field doing different kinds of work with unique licenses.
Nurses are not the doctors’ assistants. In fact, nurses act under their own license. Nurses do not practice medicine; they practice nursing. They do not work in the medical field; they work in health care. Nurses have their own philosophy, theory, and concerns just as doctors and pharmacists have theirs.
The focus of nursing is on the care and health of patients, whereas the doctor’s focus is on diagnosis and cure. This is a big different. If we’re interested in the diseases, their causes, and how to get rid of or cure them, medicine might be for us.
If we’re interested in working and caring for people to help them regain or maintain their health, nursing might be our field. Choose nursing because it lets we do what we want to do and not because of what others think or because of what we don’t know yet.
I would tell my juniors who was thinking about going into nursing today. I had told them to think very carefully about it first. Nursing isn’t like it used to be. It’s not as easy as it used to be. We have to be motivated and know what we want to do and set goals.
Nurses aren’t the people who only get involve in hospital setting. Nursing is too broad. We can go anywhere.
References:
Katz, J.R. (2007). A career in nursing: it is right for me? Mosby;USA.
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