Dear -----,
I would like to discuss a problem concerning your opinion of my career of choice. When discussing my decision to be a nurse, you tend to respond something along the line of, “But... why not be a doctor? You’re to smart to be a nurse,” in a disappointed manner. I acknowledge your intention to compliment me as being intelligent, and I appreciate your high opinion. In actuality, you are insulting the field of nursing and therefore insulting my choice of career by insinuating that nurses somehow lack intelligence and abilities. I have requested that you please cease to question my career, but you have continued to bemoan how I am “not living up to my potential,” so I am writing a letter to explicitly voice my grievances and request once and for all for my choices to be respected.
I would expect another person of an underappreciated career choice to have some empathy. Artists are sometimes stereotyped as academic failures and slackers who enter the field because they can’t get real jobs, that art is a useless field that is instated for academically inept people, and that any idiot can draw. This is especially projected in the fact that art programs are being cut from school curriculums. How would you feel if I scoffed at your career, or bemoaned you for “not living up to your potential” to get a Ph D in fine art, or that you should have entered a “real career” such as law, medicine, or business? It would be hurtful and insulting, especially if you knew that the person had no idea about the field and was basing his opinion on nothing but a stereotype.
Telling a nurse that he or she is too smart for the nursing career is not flattering, rather, it is yet another reminder of how underappreciated and wrongly stereotyped we are. People who stereotype us as doctors’ handmaidens, room service, nymphomaniac mistresses, pink collars, and aspiring gold-diggers all wear on our nerves. Even the loving, caring, “angel of mercy” stereotype is untrue. Nurses need thick skin, lightning-quick neurons, fuel-efficient stomachs, bladders with Olympic-sized pool capacities, and iron stomachs. I have known some army nurses who were totally no-nonsense and tougher than nails, and I would personally prefer a competent nurse over a sweet one, although a combination of the two would be great. I choose to be a nurse because I want to enter the medical field and help people, as well as build a successful career. To stereotype the nursing field as settling for a plan B if one can’t get into medical school or not living up to one’s potential is hurtful and untrue. Sure, some people may enter the field when that happens, but there are many people who find the field rewarding and challenging. Nursing, a career too easy for smart people? Spend a few hours in the ER and then tell me that all the brains and abilities lie in the doctors. Media portrays doctors as the main healthcare providers, as omniscient leaders whose orders are unquestioningly obeyed by his subservient nurses. This media often shows doctors performing tasks that normally would be in the hands of nurse, such as dressing wounds, explaining procedures, med admin, round-the-clock personal care, etc. In reality, the doctor usually comes in for a few minutes, makes a diagnosis based on tests, observations, and the notes that a NURSE has taken, and leaves to fill out paperwork. Nurses holistically care for the patient. One of the things that attracted me to [boyfriend] was the fact that he’s spent all too much time in the hospitals and fully appreciates nurses. Anyone who’s ever been in the hospital will quickly learn that we are the backbone of the healthcare system, as well the patients’ direct caretakers. The life of the doctor is glamorized, and you as well as 99% of the population fall for that. I’m not downplaying doctors, nor do I see them as “sour grapes.” We’re the ones who keep the doctors from messing up, as well as the ones who really have contact with the patients. Nursing is not tantamount with failure or underachieving, it is opportunity and dedication.
The Nursing Advocacy website illustrates my point pretty well:
“Well-meaning persons sometimes suggest that a nurse they find to be skilled or knowledgeable could or should be a physician, or kiddingly address such a nurse as if he were a physician. Although nurses appreciate compliments, many nurses view these usually innocent comments as unhelpful to the profession. Nurses work together with physicians to restore and maintain health. But nursing is anautonomous profession with its own theory, scholarship and clinical practice areas. Nurses are not junior physicians or physicians' assistants, and few nurses wish to become physicians. In fact, nursing has its own "doctors:" nurses with doctorates in nursing.
In many cases, these statements reflect a common stereotype that a health care worker who displays significant knowledge or technical skills must be a physician, since nurses do not have such qualities. When it becomes obvious that a particular nurse does have such qualities, it is not surprising that many conclude she must be exceptional, which does not conflict with their larger pre-existing ideas. The challenge is to help the public see that knowledgeable, skilled nurses are not the exception, but the rule. Breaking down this part of the nursing stereotype could also help persuade more bright, motivated people to enter the profession and relieve the current shortage.
Not all elements of the common nursing stereotype are negative. Many regard nurses as notably trustworthy, caring and patient-focused. However, we are still waiting to hear about a physician who displays these qualities being told: "You could be a nurse!" Of course, given the wide disparity in status between physicians and nurses, such a statement would be virtually impossible today. And we are not suggesting that it should be made; it could reflect negative stereotyping of physicians.”
I am not angry with you, and I hope that we can continue the friendship. I simply wish for you to respect my wishes and realize that your stereotyping of the nursing field is wrong and insulting.
Sincerely,
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