This is Nursing?

This is Nursing?

What does the term “Nurse Advocate” mean to you? My guess is that you would say that a nurse should be an advocate for the patient. In other words, the nurse would be trained to make decisions that would benefit the patient and/or his family. 

For example, let’s say that a nurse notices that one of the aides is not treating a patient with compassion and understanding. The nurse would be obligated to insist that the aide change her attitude or, if that would prove to be unsuccessful, then to report the aide to someone up the chain of command. 

Or perhaps the patient’s family is confused about a doctor’s directive with regard to the treatment of a loved one, and the nurse steps in to explain in a manner that eases the family’s concern. 

This kind of advocacy is nothing new and has been part of the nurse’s responsibility for a long time. But today the “nurse advocate’ may be a whole different kind of animal and a dangerous one at that.

A close friend of mine is taking a nursing class entitled “The Nurse Advocate.” She shared with me a recent essay assignment that is so clearly politically biased that it is almost laughable. 

One part of the assignment lists seven topics that must be defined: (1) Gun Violence/ Gun Control; (2) The “New” Green Deal, Fossil Fuels, Banning Plastics? And/or Climate Change; (3) Immigration/ Border Control; (4) Healthcare/ Medicare for All versus Expanded Medicaid or fixing ACA; (5) Economics/ New Jobs? Economic Inequality; (6) Social Justice; (7) Education

Anyone see a pattern here? Virtually all of the topics are left-wing issues. You don’t find topics such as “Saving Lives with the Second Amendment,” “Is the New Green Deal an Unhealthy Idea?” “Is Illegal Immigration a Health Crisis?” “Saving Private Health Care.” “A Strong Economy and Better Health Care,” “Health and the Law” or “Our Failing Public Schools and Its Effect on the Future of Medicine.” In contrast, the teacher’s list looks like CNN debate topics for the Democrats.

Once the students define each topic, they are expected to explain why each one is directly or indirectly significant to health care, how it applies to nursing or health care, and whether a presidential candidate should have the topic in his platform. There is an option to explain why a topic does not relate to nursing, but, given the inherent bias, that might be risky.

I wonder how the teacher would respond if a student gave the following responses:

Gun violence would apply if a patient was in the hospital because he had been shot. Since criminals ignore gun control legislation, gun control would lead to more innocent victims in our emergency rooms.

If the New Green Deal were enacted, it would bankrupt the nation, hospitals would close, and nurses would lose their jobs. Power failures during operations would lead to more dead patients.

Many illegal immigrants have committed murder, rape, assault, theft, and other types of mayhem, giving nurses many more victims to care for.

Both Medicare and Medicaid are going broke. ACA has been a colossal failure. The private sector must be allowed to compete to bring down the cost of insurance. The VA is a classic example of government-run healthcare. How has that turned out?

What the heck does economic inequality mean? It is nonsense, unless we want to look like Venezuela. Would nurses be prepared to accept lower salaries so that every hospital employee would get the same pay? I doubt it.

Social justice? It’s a stick to bludgeon people into accepting political correctness and has nothing to do with real health care.

Obviously, nurses and doctors should be educated so that they are experts in their fields. Yes, they must know how to handle patients with care, but what we don’t need is leftist indoctrination in the health field. 

The teacher then asks the students to give a summary of the positions of all the candidates running for president, their age, their sex, their education, and other supposedly important topics. Out of the blue, one of the questions about the candidates is “Are they supported by the NRA or have they ever been in previous elections?” Again, no bias here, right?

In case you’re wondering, there is no question asking if a candidate is supported by Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, or the Communist Party of America. Why not? Well, we know why not. In the teacher’s eye, the NRA is an evil organization and any candidate who gains its support must never be the president.

There is much more to the assignment that my poor friend has to wade through, but, as Bob Dylan once sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Sadly, this is college “education” today in America. A course like this is not only a waste of money; it is also an enormous waste of time. As far as health is concerned, a course like this is undoubtedly making many students sick.

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Written by
Thomas Addis
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