Discussion please share your opinions on this.

Dellasega has 2 theories to explain the bullying culture that prevails in nursing. The first is the educational system. Nurses, being primarily women, are educated differently from medical students. Medical students are taught to never break down, to always have the answer, and to project confidence, even if they don't feel it. Dellasega believes that nurses are trained to be subservient and uncertain, rather than independent and confident.

Thoughts.
That's one person's opinion, does it really matter?Or are you writing a paper and need arguments against the opinion?

Quote from itsmejuliThat's one person's opinion, does it really matter?Or are you writing a paper and need arguments against the opinion?

There may be some subtle truth to this.What was Dellasega's second theory?

Quote from Katie5"... Dellasega believes that nurses are trained to be subservient and uncertain, rather than independent and confident."Thoughts.

Not in my diploma program, either!! We were taught to stand on our own two feet, to understand why we were doing things, question anything that didn't seem right.And we stopped having to stand when a doc entered the nurses' station and relinquish our seat to him!!!!There was backbiting even then, but not to the extent it goes on now.

I disagree with the statement that we are taught to be subservient and uncertain. Did this person ever go to nursing school? How do they know we are taught that way. I for one, was taught how to stand up for my patients, be an advocate for health and to treat doctors as peers, not as masters.

I don' think it has anything to do with how we are taught. Women by nature are catty and competative and now with so many different levels of entry education it makes it worse.......just my 2cents

Quote from AltraThere may be some subtle truth to this.What was Dellasega's second theory?

"subservient"I disagree. Totally. I was taught to be subservient as an aide, but I absolutely have not been given that impression in nursing school."uncertain"I disagree. Nursing school would be a breeze if I could get by on being "uncertain"!

I didn't know I was allowed to "break down".Funny.

It seems to be implying that medical students are men, but aside from that in my case it's we were n e v e r taught to be subservient and uncertain. I wonder when that was written? I'm always surprised to read how many students/younger nurses think that we were trained to be the "handmaiden" way back when. Not only did I not see it, I didn't see that behavior modeled by any of our instructors, either. I really hate to say this, but medical students of today seem far more contemptuous of nurses now than they ever were before. I don't get it. Although I'm sure some of them may resent what they see as intrusion on their domain via our NPs and other Advanced Practice Nurses. The turf wars are just silly to me.Not what you would expect, really but it's been my observation that older docs/attendings in general are more respectful than the medical students except for the notorious *******s but most likely they were born that way.

I have always found it interesting that once a student is admitted to Medical School they literally have to fight to get out of the program, even if they are doing poorly... In Nursing School they are constantly "weeding" out "weak" students. It seems counter intuitive to me, and I think it sets nurses up to be very tough on newer nurses.Anyone else think this is odd?