She's Not Just a Pretty Face

As a nurse, I can be critical of anything that portrays nurses and healthcare.

I think that often nurses are misrepresented in the media and people therefore think that it doesn't take much to become a registered nurse.  Granted, there are many different types of nurses, but you don't pass the NCLEX by being an idiot. We don't all hook up with doctors in locked closets like they did on ER, nor do we all go into the profession hoping to marry a doctor.  We didn't get into the profession just so that we could work 3 days a week (although that is a great perk!) or so that we could take care of everyone else's family members when some days all we really want to do is take care of ourselves and our own families.

The song of the day is Shania Twain's "She's Not Just a Pretty Face."

Nursing has been a major part of my life for the past 6 years through school and as a working RN for two years.  Let me tell you, it is not an easy profession.   I wish everyone could spend a day with a nurse and see how much real critical thinking, knowledge, patience, time management, dexterity, logical thinking, continual learning and physical effort goes into the job.  I may only work three days/36h a week, but believe you me, it is a mentally/emotionally/physically draining 36 hours.

As I type this I feel like I've maybe written about this before, but I can't find the post about it.  I'll spare you the venting session and relate this post back to the song.  Often I hear responses from people who are surprised at the amount of school I went through or interact with patients who are surprised at how much I know what I am talking about.  People see my scrubs and assume that I am just a minion who does whatever a doctor tells me to do.  They couldn't be more wrong.

The song is about looking inside of a person and seeing all that they are - I didn't pick this song to be conceited and say that I'm more than just a pretty face (some days I think I'm pretty and other days I don't, but that's a whole other can of worms).  When people see nurses they connect them to the images of nurses they have seen depicted in society and we are so much more than that.  That's all I was trying to say with this song choice.

If this is one long rambling post I apologize and am appreciative that you stuck with reading it through the end.  It's been an incredibly long past few days at work and a long few weeks before that...  I promise I will make my next post more worthwhile to read :-)