Last night, I told my mother that after I passed the board exam I will take an APCN (Advance Practice Clinical Nurse) course at Philippine General Hospital to enhance my nursing skills. My father told me to apply also in Pinoy MD scholarship so that I can be a doctor. My mother told my father to don’t push me to medicine because I decided already to enhance my chosen profession. After that talk, my mother went to their room but my argument with my father continued.
He asked me why I don’t want to proceed to medicine. I responded that i don’t want to continue medicine because I think doctor’s life is more stressful than nurse’s life. Nurse’s duty last only for 8 hours while doctor’s duty is 24 hours. Nurse’s duty will be favorable to me because I think I could use the free time to the things I want to do aside from taking care the sick people. Then he told me “Doctors only prescribed medicines while nurses are burden with hospital works and just follow the doctor’s order.” I think he has some points but I replied: “Doctors not only prescribe medicines but they also do certain work in the hospital. It’s a common misconception that nurses are always dependent to doctors (maid in the hospitals) but the truth is nurses are independent. They can question the orders of doctors if they are not confident to follow the order.”
He quickly responded that maybe in the Philippines it is applicable but in USA it’s not. The doctor might tell the nurse “Why don’t you be the doctor here? I am the doctor so follow my order!”.
I replied with confident that it’s the nurse right to question the doctor’s order because if there something happened bad to the patient, the nurse will also be liable. It’s the nurse right to protect the patient and his/her own license.
Then, I was surprised by his reply: “Okay fine, If you want to be a nurse only.”, so I responded: “Nurse only?”. Then he defended his response: “Nurses just take care of sick people. They cannot prescribe medicines to heal people. They even cannot put up their own clinic.”
Still in moderate and calm voice, I replied that nurses really cannot prescribe medicines because it’s not our job but nurses can put up their own clinic. Even without a master or specialization, we can set up clinic if we are licensed. He replied: “Well, nurses can put up clinics but they can only do is to take vital signs and take blood pressure.” Then I responded that nurse can do health teachings too and do nursing procedures.
He wants to tell more about his point of view to nurses but our very long argument was interrupted by an angry voice of my mother, who is also a nurse. She told my father that don’t tell “nurse only” because it is my chosen profession. If he want medicine then he study medicine.
After that, our house was filled with silence. I realized that in four years that he financed my BSN, he thinks nursing is a low profession. It really hurts. Well, that’s not the first case I heard downing my profession. While having our hospital duty, when I was still a senior student, my group mate reported to our instructor that the watcher of her patient told her: “Ah, cleaning patient’s butt is the only job of nurses! hahaha!”.
I cannot blame them because they don’t know how difficult to obtain a BSN degree and passing the board exam. Here in the Philippines, people look doctors as superior and boss while they look nurses as maids/assistant of doctors. I think the big population of nurses that are unemployed or underemployed also affects the view to the nursing profession.
It’s my childhood dream to be a doctor and having a free education to medicine is a great opportunity so i don’t close my door for medicine. However, I think nothing beats the holistic care of nurses to the patients and I think nurses should be treated equally with the doctors.
