Nurses Are Real Medical Professionals

So, my alma mater has an anonymous site that students can post questions, thoughts, secrets, etc. and people can post comments to the original posts. The site can be toxic. Every several months I will visit the site to see what is on the mind of current students and current happenings at the school. I will preempt what I am about to write by saying that Mt. Holyoke does not offer a nursing major/minor. The closest would be either the pre-med program or the certificate in Public Health with the consortium that Mt. Holyoke is part of with 5 other schools. MHC students tend to be a bit elitist. Anyways, on my last visit to the site a student had posted a comment about nurses not being real medical professionals and that nurses should leave helping people to doctors. Last I checked, nurses do a fair amount of helping people. I was furious at the comment. How can someone be so ignorant. She went on to say that she was the daughter of a doctor and that she only uses specialists for her medical treatment. This girl apparently doesn't have a PCP, but rather a gynecologist, orthopedic surgeon. gastroenterologist, psychiatrist, ENT, immunologist, endocrinologist, dermatologist, and a neurologist (sounds a bit like a hypochondriac to me...). The comment of hers that scared me the most was when she said that her father, a neurosurgeon, was not even CPR certified. I definitely wouldn't want this girl's father operating on me. I expect my doctor's to be up-to-date on all their certifications, and her father doesn't sound like her is. At my doctor's office it is easier and faster to get in to see the PA or the NP than my actual doctor, and personally I think they do a great job. In addition to saying that nurses are not real medical professionals, she made the assumption that NPs do not specialize. When I was researching where to apply for my second degree, I came across a number of direct-entry programs. Every single one of them required the applicant to select a specialty at the master's degree level. Having come across that information, I would say that means that NPs do indeed specialize. I will end my post by saying that there were plenty of others that did stick up for the nursing profession and other medical professionals (not including doctors) and my favorite comment of all was the post saying,

Clearly you've never been in an Emergency Room, OP. Nurses run that shit.

BTW, I'd like to see a doctor getting their hands dirty triaging patients at a fatal multi-vehicle accident on the highway at 2am. Or performing CPR on the floor of someone's home surrounded by their hysterical relatives. Or carrying a 300lbs CHF patient in respiratory distress down 2 flights of stairs. Or delivering a baby in a moving vehicle going 70 mph. It was a boy, in case you were wondering. :)

I hope you didn't graduate this year, because I'll keep your opinion in mind next time you call 911 in South Hadley and I show up to take care of you. ♥

Until next time...