The evolution of the ‘traditional nurse’ to academic ‘high flyer’.

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Guest article by Lynsey Keep

Twenty years ago nursing students were recognized as being young, eager ‘new recruits’, in fact, relative ‘virgins’ to employment, least of all a career.

To become a nurse was something to be proud of, a vocation, and lifelong commitment to the caring profession. These people were innocent and impressionable and would be perfect candidates to join the healthcare profession.

To enter into a career choice that was renowned for paying a low wage, have high expectations for the student to embark on gruelling study, along with juggling awkward shift patterns and unsocial hours, was a vocation that these keen new-starters accepted without question

In the early nineties, nursing in the United Kingdom was taken by storm, by the introduction of a new innovation in nurse training. ‘Project 2000’ aimed to take the student away from bedpans and the sluice room, and instead place them in university classrooms, studying from behind a desk, as opposed to learning at the patients bedside.

The aim of this new-age approach to nurse training was to encourage nurses to think, and act as a direct result of evidence based practice, and also to be able to substantiate actions and reflect on nursing practice.

And so, a new breed of ‘super nurse’ was created. The course itself received bad press and was wholly unwelcome, the ‘traditional’ nurses were made to feel that their years of dedication to their chosen profession were no longer adequate, and that in order to raise their professional profile, they would be required to enter into a phase of learning once again, in order to raise the standard of their hard earned qualification.

In more recent years, nurses have accepted the reasoning behind the academic style of nurse training. It is now clear that to have letters after ones name that suggest such high academic status, allows nurses to demand such things as higher levels of pay, and equally important, greater respect, and upward mobility among the ranks.

There has been a significant shift in the expectation of the ‘registered nurse’ from that of twenty years ago, and hands-on nursing roles are being designated to healthcare assistants with no nursing qualification.

Due to the academic prowess of nurses today, they strive to achieve management positions, which are usually non-clinical. This allows them to avoid the less pleasant, patient focused care, and removes further from retaining essential practical nursing skills.

The dedication to patient care appears to be a distant memory, and fading fast, as Britain’s breed of ‘traditional nurses’ retire, or simply leave the profession in many cases as a result of disappointment, disillusionment, and general lack of dedication toward an institution they were once so proud to be part of.

It is unlikely that the institution of nursing will ever revert back to its former ‘roots’.

The age of the academic nurse that strives to collect letters after their name, as opposed to letters of thanks from grateful patients, really is here to stay.