What do you think about nurses?

Are nurses regarded to be in an important profession. Are they depicted to be smart or stupid on TV. Would you become a nurse? Why is there a nursing shortage? Would you suggest for your child, male or female, to become a nurse?

I work with a lot of very competent, caring nurses in the OR. We couldn't do what we do without them.

I can't tell you about their portrayal on TV because I don't watch medical shows. The inconsistencies and overdramatization annoys me.

Nurses work hard, and take a lot of crap from some doctors and some patients. They also get to make a real difference in patients' lives.

If any of my kids wanted to go into nursing, I'd be all for it. There are a lot of opportunities within the nursing profession, including advanced practice degrees.

I do think it is an important profession...on some shows they are protrayed as being smart and on others they are protrayed as just being "the doctors little helper".
Personally, it all depends on the nurse...but most of them help calm my nerves before I actually see the doctor.

They are a special breed. God bless most of them. More men should get into it.

Next time you have to stay in a hospital, you tell me wether or not Nurses are important.

I hate the T.V shows which use good-looking actresses for nurses. The best nurse is simply the one who looks out for their patient like a mother does for a child.....well, not entirely, but a nurse who does their job properly and frequently checks their patients health etc.

i am a doctor by profession and take my word dear that without nurses doctors are only half competent as they shown to be if u are not convinced then i think u should know that in west bfore taking an appointment to a doc. u need to undergo an examination by a nurse to decide whether u need a doc. or not and regarding shortage it is bcos nurses are not required to have long years of academics and so they r being used more than they r produced i would definitely recommend it to u or my own child if he or wishes too be!!

i think nurses are an important part of our hospitals. when i was in the hospital, this nurse was coaching me while i was having my son. if it wasn't for her i thought i was never going to get through it. in some movies nurses are being portrayed as stupid. some other movies they are portrayed as a big help.

Their hotness makes ma pants rustle with joy. ^_^

Nurses seem to me like doctors little helpers. I don't think they do much independent thinking, they just follow everyone else's directions.

I think it depends on who you ask whether nursing is important or not. Especially older people might say that nurses just hand out pills and make your bed whereas most younger people tend to see them as more important. The nursing shortage, though honestly i didn't know there was one, might be based on the assumption that nursing is just low level medicine failing to see that those 2 are basically just different approaches to a common problem, though they overlap of course. Additionaly i think males working in the classical female fields are still looked upon with suspicion at best and this might also be a reason for taking medicine over nursing.
I personally wouldn't suggest the job for my kids, but would be glad to aid them if one of em wishes to go in that direction, no matter if it's a boy or a girl.

I couldn't be a nurse, and wouldn't recommend it for any of my children, because it's a tough and underappreciated job. I have the utmost respect for them. We often have little arguments at work when nurses start denigrating themselves with their "but you're the doctor" talk, and I have to insist that their job is every bit as important as mine.

I am in nursing school I will soon graduate with my RN, I was a CNA for year working in nursing homes and hospitals. Nurses are wonderful. they help so many people. if you think about it how many patients do doctors have can they sit at every patients bedside at the hospital, no that is why there are highly trained specialists that help nurse you back to health fallowing doctors orders. actually the history of nurses is that the job was a punishment for criminals, it was not a job that one with a good reputation would want to have but florence nightengale turned that around. now it is a highly respectable job. and what would the world be like without them. surely there arent enough doctors