5 ms·

My brother recently finished nursing school. The number of times he got the question, "you're gonna be a male nurse?" ... He had a number of cute responses.

tptacek 10y ago
The prejudice and stereotyping here is ridiculous, but honestly, I think something that needs to happen (for a variety of reasons) is for the term "nurse" to be retired, and replaced with something like "medical associate". The nursing profession is extraordinarily important, and we underutilize it in this country. Most of us should be talking to "nurses" much more frequently than we do, and much more often than we talk to doctors.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  I agree with the idea that utilizing highly-trained physicians for basic health care is a misallocation of resources. Nurse practitioners and physician associates [0] should and have been receiving more autonomy in providing basic care. They have enough training to do so, and should be capable of recognizing when a referral is required. [0] Also known as "physician assistant", which is a terrible name when making a case for autonomy...
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  What's wrong with nurse? It has a quite specific meaning. Changing it medical associate just makes it less precise. What's needed is for sexism to be eradicated everywhere; changing the names is not going to do that.
  - pasquinelli 10y ago
    i agree that sexism needs to be eradicated everywhere, and i don't honestly believe shuffling terminology is a very significant move, but to be fair the word nurse is a gendered one: besides meaning to care for someone, it also refers to the same general concept in a more specific circumstance, that is, breastfeeding.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    The gendering of the term is a small problem. The big problem is that it connotes things that are no longer true of the role. For instance: nurse-practitioners are first-line health care professionals whose job isn't to assist doctors (as most nurses do), but rather to prevent people from needing to see them in the first case, even when they're ill. The market as a whole needs to come to the understanding that we (a) need a kind of "doctor-lite" for people to go see, and (b) that we have them already: we call them nurses, but should call them something else. Not many people feel they can switch careers in mid-life to become a doctor. But people routinely go to nursing school for a career switch. It would be good if more people did this, specifically to get NP status.
    - antisthenes 10y ago
      The term "physician assistant" seems pretty gender neutral and appropriate. They have similar education requirements to a nurse and perform (in practice) similar functions.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        No, because they're not physicians assistants. They can see patients independently and prescribe drugs without ever interacting with a doctor. The NP practices at places like Walgreens don't even have doctors on staff.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        > No, because they're not physicians assistants. They can see patients independently and prescribe drugs without ever interacting with a doctor. In a minority of jurisdictions in the US, NPs can practice without the supervision of a physician, whereas PAs, in all jurisdictions, must be in a relationship with a supervising physician. But both PAs and NPs, generally, can see patients and prescribe medications, within state-specified limits, without interacting with a physician in the course of performing that function.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > For instance: nurse-practitioners are first-line health care professionals whose job isn't to assist doctors (as most nurses do) I don't think "assisting doctors" is actually what most nurses do; most nurses work under the clinical supervision of a physician (and that's also true of NPs in a majority of US jurisdictions; there are 20 states where they have "full practice authority".) In any case, since NPs are RNs with additional qualifications (they are actually a name for some specialities of advance practice registered nurses), it makes sense that they are called nurses. > Not many people feel they can switch careers in mid-life to become a doctor. But people routinely go to nursing school for a career switch. It would be good if more people did this, specifically to get NP status. NP status (or APRN more generally, regardless of specialty) takes substantially more education than RN, and a lot of the people who go back to school for nursing don't even get to the RN level, just LVN/LPN. Changing the name isn't going to change that. Anyway, the non-nurse physician-lite you are talking about isn't the NP, it's the Physician Assistant. While the scope of practice is somewhat similar, the latter is abbreviated training of the type provided to physicians, the latter is advanced training of the type provided to nurses; they are different models. An NP or other APRN is a nurse with advanced training and certification which allows them to do some things without supervision of a physician, a physician assistant is a reduced-qualification physician with a correspondingly narrowed scope of practice. You seem to be interested in the latter, but think that the former is the same thing with a poorly chosen name rather than a distinct and different thing with some overlap in role.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I think something that needs to happen (for a variety of reasons) is for the term "nurse" to be retired, and replaced with something like "medical associate". Nursing has its own tradition and model of education , training, and care that is quite distinct from that of medicine. Nurses aren't medical associates. (And there already is a profession called, depending on jurisdiction, physician associate or physician assistant -- which follows the medical rather than nursing model -- which would be confusing if nurses were renamed medical associates.) And, given the idea that nurses are increasingly the dominant point of contact, it would make more sense (were we to decide to erase the distinction) to rename physicians "nursing supervisors" rather than the other way around. Of course, confusion with names of existing roles would again be a problem.

tptacek 10y ago

The prejudice and stereotyping here is ridiculous, but honestly, I think something that needs to happen (for a variety of reasons) is for the term "nurse" to be retired, and replaced with something like "medical associate". The nursing profession is extraordinarily important, and we underutilize it in this country. Most of us should be talking to "nurses" much more frequently than we do, and much more often than we talk to doctors.

jdmichal 10y ago
I agree with the idea that utilizing highly-trained physicians for basic health care is a misallocation of resources. Nurse practitioners and physician associates [0] should and have been receiving more autonomy in providing basic care. They have enough training to do so, and should be capable of recognizing when a referral is required. [0] Also known as "physician assistant", which is a terrible name when making a case for autonomy...
kwhitefoot 10y ago
What's wrong with nurse? It has a quite specific meaning. Changing it medical associate just makes it less precise. What's needed is for sexism to be eradicated everywhere; changing the names is not going to do that.
- pasquinelli 10y ago
  i agree that sexism needs to be eradicated everywhere, and i don't honestly believe shuffling terminology is a very significant move, but to be fair the word nurse is a gendered one: besides meaning to care for someone, it also refers to the same general concept in a more specific circumstance, that is, breastfeeding.
- tptacek 10y ago
  The gendering of the term is a small problem. The big problem is that it connotes things that are no longer true of the role. For instance: nurse-practitioners are first-line health care professionals whose job isn't to assist doctors (as most nurses do), but rather to prevent people from needing to see them in the first case, even when they're ill. The market as a whole needs to come to the understanding that we (a) need a kind of "doctor-lite" for people to go see, and (b) that we have them already: we call them nurses, but should call them something else. Not many people feel they can switch careers in mid-life to become a doctor. But people routinely go to nursing school for a career switch. It would be good if more people did this, specifically to get NP status.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    The term "physician assistant" seems pretty gender neutral and appropriate. They have similar education requirements to a nurse and perform (in practice) similar functions.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      No, because they're not physicians assistants. They can see patients independently and prescribe drugs without ever interacting with a doctor. The NP practices at places like Walgreens don't even have doctors on staff.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > No, because they're not physicians assistants. They can see patients independently and prescribe drugs without ever interacting with a doctor. In a minority of jurisdictions in the US, NPs can practice without the supervision of a physician, whereas PAs, in all jurisdictions, must be in a relationship with a supervising physician. But both PAs and NPs, generally, can see patients and prescribe medications, within state-specified limits, without interacting with a physician in the course of performing that function.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > For instance: nurse-practitioners are first-line health care professionals whose job isn't to assist doctors (as most nurses do) I don't think "assisting doctors" is actually what most nurses do; most nurses work under the clinical supervision of a physician (and that's also true of NPs in a majority of US jurisdictions; there are 20 states where they have "full practice authority".) In any case, since NPs are RNs with additional qualifications (they are actually a name for some specialities of advance practice registered nurses), it makes sense that they are called nurses. > Not many people feel they can switch careers in mid-life to become a doctor. But people routinely go to nursing school for a career switch. It would be good if more people did this, specifically to get NP status. NP status (or APRN more generally, regardless of specialty) takes substantially more education than RN, and a lot of the people who go back to school for nursing don't even get to the RN level, just LVN/LPN. Changing the name isn't going to change that. Anyway, the non-nurse physician-lite you are talking about isn't the NP, it's the Physician Assistant. While the scope of practice is somewhat similar, the latter is abbreviated training of the type provided to physicians, the latter is advanced training of the type provided to nurses; they are different models. An NP or other APRN is a nurse with advanced training and certification which allows them to do some things without supervision of a physician, a physician assistant is a reduced-qualification physician with a correspondingly narrowed scope of practice. You seem to be interested in the latter, but think that the former is the same thing with a poorly chosen name rather than a distinct and different thing with some overlap in role.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> I think something that needs to happen (for a variety of reasons) is for the term "nurse" to be retired, and replaced with something like "medical associate". Nursing has its own tradition and model of education , training, and care that is quite distinct from that of medicine. Nurses aren't medical associates. (And there already is a profession called, depending on jurisdiction, physician associate or physician assistant -- which follows the medical rather than nursing model -- which would be confusing if nurses were renamed medical associates.) And, given the idea that nurses are increasingly the dominant point of contact, it would make more sense (were we to decide to erase the distinction) to rename physicians "nursing supervisors" rather than the other way around. Of course, confusion with names of existing roles would again be a problem.