I’d like to pose a question. If you had to choose one profession to rank as the No. 1 most trusted profession, which would it be?? Think about it…
I can’t read your mind, but I can tell you that this question is asked to millions of people each year, and the nursing profession consistently ranks highest. Why, though? Why is it the nurse, as opposed to the doctor who is the one creating the care plan? In fact, doctors do rank way up there, however, it’s nurses who retain that number 1 spot year after year. Why, why, why? I’ll tell you why. It boils down to three main factors; honesty, contact time, and care.
Honesty:
Nurses are honest. Plain and simple. And they have to be; in large part because of the intimacy between nurse and patient. Each patient is an entire world, and he or she is trusting the nurse to do things that no one else can do for them. It takes a huge amount of trust to let someone insert a foley or start an IV. It takes a huge amount of trust to accept that the medications being administered are correct and given safely. But if the nurse is honest, the trust is automatic.
Another interesting thing to note, is that ‘interpreter’ is but one of the many personas of a nurse. Picture this. The doctor enters a patient’s room and starts spewing medical terminology. It could be he’s trying to explain a care plan, or maybe he’s actually delivering a prognosis. Either way, it’s frightening for the patient because he does not understand. Enter the nurse. Part of her job is to serve as the go-between. In lay man’s terms, she can gently interpret the doctor’s words in a manner in which the patient can comprehend and internalize them. It may not be easy, especially if it involves a grim prognosis, but that honesty breeds the trust that a patient needs to feel.
Contact Time:
It’s safe to assume that of all the interactions a patient may have in the hospital, almost 100% of them are with a nurse. It’s simply the way of the ‘hospital world.’ And this alone lends to an element of trust. Human nature dictates that we trust the ‘steady’s’ in our lives, and for a patient, the nurse is ever present. A patient is in pain, the nurse is there. A patient has a special request, the nurse is there. A patient has a problem, the nurse is there. And to take things a step further, the nurse is generally able to offer up a solution to the pain, request, problem etc. This in turn solidifies the trust in the nurse.
Care:
Care goes beyond medical care. When someone chooses to devote their life to nursing, they are choosing to be so much more than a medical professional in scrubs. They are choosing to be a friend, advocate, and good human being. When a patient detects that their nurse is connecting to their human side, it creates an incredible bond and a trust so strong. It may mean the nurse has to go out of her way to procure the patient’s favorite snack, or it may mean sitting and crying with the patient until he/she falls asleep. Either way, a nurse’s care is like no other.
And this my friends, is why nurses are the most trusted professionals in the world.
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