Bad medicine: Profession’s image needs nursing back to good health

Florence Nightingale’s undeviating determination to put her own stamp on nursing, nonetheless, succeeded, not just because of her capacity to use vitriol, charm and manipulation in equal measure, but because she understood the importance of communication.

You don’t tell a conference of nurses that the nursing profession has a poor image. You certainly don’t tell them that you dread hearing that a nurse is going to come onto a radio programme, because you know she’s going to be moaning.

But that’s precisely what happened at last week’s Conference of the HSE South’s Nursing and Midwifery Planning and Development Unit. It wasn’t an external speaker who rubbished media contributions by nurses. It was one of their own. A senior one of their own, whose observations were supported by most of the audience, including a colleague who asked the ultimate gobsmacker question.