The nursing profession's coming of age: The death of nursing, the dumbing down of medicine

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7532.51-a

BMJ 2006;332:51 (7 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7532.51-a

Letter

The nursing profession's coming of age

The death of nursing, the dumbing down of medicine

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—Young claims that the distinction between medicine(diagnosis and cure) and nursing (care) has become increasinglyblurred.¹ No it has not—patients still have the same illnessesand still require the same care as they did before. It is theabandonment of nursing by modern nurses that is new, to thedetriment of health care in this country.

"The only aim to consider is that we respond safely, sensitively,and effectively to our patients' needs."¹ Exactly. So can weplease get back to basics and have trained nurses to nurse andtrained doctors to doctor. Instead we have care assistants playingat being nurses, nurses playing at being doctors, doctors playingat being managers, and managers just playing.

Here is a radical idea. Why not have doctors who are trainedto doctor, do the doctoring, and nurses who are trained to nurse,do the nursing. That way the patients might actually . . . [Full text of this article]

Robbie S Coull, general practitioner

Inverness IV1 1LD locum@coull.net