We are All Proud to Say We're Nurses---Aren't We?

I don’t know how to begin this; I don’t have a smooth segue into a story that lacks an earthshaking quality because it deals with a common emotion—embarrassment. But, it is somewhat intriguing—at least to me. I have a strong interest in people, their personalities, their jobs, what they do for fun and what motivates them to do what they do. The questions just pour out of me, to the point of bordering on interrogation. My friend says I’m curious, my husband says I’m nosy and my sister is puzzled as to why I would even want to know these things.

At my nursing school, our very first patient assignment was to simply chat at the bedside of a patient and learn as much as we could about that patient. We students and our instructor then congregated to share the information we’d gleaned from the patients. To restate the popular "boys with the most toys" phrase, "the nurse who asks the most questions wins." I always won. Things just kind of snowballed from there.

At an event at a Boulder, Colorado mountaineering shop last week, I ran into a friend who introduced me to a premier climber who writes magazine articles and books on climbing. So, the questions began (my friends call it playing The Glenna Game) and soon I learned that his fiancée is a RN. He introduced us via e-mail the next day and, yes, The Glenna Game ensued.

I learned she is a woman of the great outdoors, a climber and a wilderness EMT who has taught W-EMT to climbers, hikers and rafters. She is an ED nurse at a prestigious hospital for children and she told me she loves her job—really loves her job.

I learned through our e-mail conversations that she is currently mentoring a new nurse, a 29-year-old male who is also a climber. She asked why he hadn’t gone to nursing school as a traditional-aged college student and he admitted that it was because he was embarrassed to have to say he was studying nursing. He was working in the outdoor industry, and also as a wilderness EMT, teaching life-saving skills to backcountry warriors, mostly male. The stereotypical nurse image conflicted with his established macho image.

I don’t know how he managed to overcome his image issues and move forward with a nursing career but I’m glad he got past it—if he did. I say that because my new e-friend then dropped the bomb that she, too, has felt embarrassment when telling certain people, primarily the rugged climbing crowd she hangs with, that she is a nurse, particularly a neonatal ICU nurse, which she was in her first job.

She’d wanted to be a veterinarian but in her freshman year of college someone told her there was a glut of vets, jobs were scarce and if she wanted to have a job after college she’d be wiser to go to nursing school—so she did. She didn’t come with the built-in nurse gene. She didn’t want to be a traditional nurse and, to this day, the angel of mercy perception of nurses still chafes. Her nursing school graduating class even voted her "Most Likely to Change Careers." But, she has been at it for 13 years.

My impression is that her 13 years as a nurse have resolved her image issues but, as a
new graduate and for a few years beyond, she struggled when in the presence of certain company. AJN editor, Diana Mason, RN, PhD, FAAN was right when she said, "It does take something special to be a good nurse but it doesn’t have to be innate. With the proper desire, skills can be learned." Having pride in one’s profession also can be learned.

I’ve always been proud to be a nurse and feel that every nurse should be, but I won’t pass judgement on these two nurses. We all come with full sets of jam-packed baggage that shape our self-perceptions and how we want others to perceive us. Lots of factors are at work here, among them our country’s stereotypes of nurses, male and female. I think it just takes time to sort through our baggage in order to find our way to the place we need to be, to discover the person we are supposed to be and to become comfortable with that place and that person.

I also think every nurse has unique talents. Nurses aren’t made using the same cookie cutter, nor should they be. My e-friend’s favorite nursing experience was four months spent as a volunteer, assisting with surgeries in rural areas of Nepal. Not every nurse would or could do that, but it is wonderful that she did. I’ll even admit that I’m grateful that she, in effect, went in my place.

If you have had trouble coming to terms with being a nurse, I’d like to hear your story. Let’s hear your comments.