Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHS
Malcolm Chalk BA, RN
I Left school with no qualifications, spent most of my working life as a driver and 25 years driving HGV class one vehicles. Spent a long time as an inpatient during the 1960's and 70's with asthma - over ten years - including Harefield hospital, open air schools and a year in a chest clinic in Switzerland. I have always admired the nurses for the care they gave me and my fellow patients. I always wanted to be a nurse from that inspiration. Nurses are their worth, but are underpaid and most do not realise it, especially the 'old school', but maybe their day is now done? I have met some brilliant and clever mentors and as nurses they are our future; University educated, mostly young, and with a new enlightenment of their real worth, which is now thankfully stepping reasonably on the toes of the medics. They are the ones who will eventually push the profession of nursing where it should be.
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Comments (22)
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Comment on: 'The arguments around nurse training are getting louder as we get poorer'
Anonymous | 12-Jun-2010 4:39 pm Show your name! I haven't got a nursing degree, nursing degrees are BSc's. I fully go with what Mike is saying, he makes a lot of sense and I bet the vast majority of nurses agree and understand what he is saying (I must admit he puts it across a lot better than me). Students do work/train/and learn on the wards, (remember where to put you commas), and they do it for at least 18 months full on. Your friend has got as much knowledge as you, when you first started out; try reading Patricia Benner that might explain things a little more clearly.
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Comment on: 'The arguments around nurse training are getting louder as we get poorer'
Our profession is evolving and we certainly learn far more as a university based profession than from the old nursing schools. Of course you build up your practical skills over the years the same as most jobs, but the difference now is the academic skills we can use as part of our nursing toolkit. Unfortunately over the last three decades thatcheristic ideology took the wind out of the sails of an understanding of workers rights, equality, and what really is fair pay. This nievity often reflects on potential and newly qualified nurses, as well as those old school nurses whom have still got their noses well and truly stuck in an uncomprimising nosebag of the past. We all need to push a lot harder for respect and recognition of our practical as much as our cognitive skills. We must not do ourselves down; academia whether university degree or university diploma (there's not much difference other than means testing between them) is the keystone to professional nursing, fairer and better pay.
