When I talk to nurses about their jobs, as I do constantly, they tell me about the pressures of working with too few staff, and about how it hurts not be able to provide the level of care they would like. We talk about why things have got to this, and chances are they will say something along the lines of: “They wouldn’t treat other professions this badly.” Usually the other professions they are thinking of are dominated by men.
They look around at other all-graduate professions – law, medicine, accountancy – and wonder whether their employees are also expected to put up with high levels of verbal and physical abuse, stress, work pressure and low pay. They also wonder why their own profession can’t seem to shake off the image of being doctors’ helpers instead of the autonomous, highly technical, safety-critical clinical occupation it really is.
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