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[–] REEEperMan 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

It must be PSW they're all talking about then when they say they're in "nursing school" or that they're studying to be a "nurse", because most of them have either only high school education or some unrelated college degree... and they're all complete imbeciles, so there's that. It doesn't surprise me at all that these fats would misrepresent their job to make it seem more prestigious.

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[–] DorothyMantooth ago 

Yes, those people are going to school to become Nurse's Aides or LPNs (Licensed Practical Nurse). LPNs love to talk about being "nurses" but (no insult intended, if we happen to have any LPNs etc. here) they're essentially just basic care workers with slightly more education. I remember my mom--an RN, with a BScN degree--becoming speechless with anger and contempt once when an LPN tried to claim that she could "do anything nurses can do except start IVs." There is a huge difference in education and skills there. In the US we also have the LNP/RNP, which is a Nurse Practitioner, which is a Nurse with a Master's degree instead of a Bachelor's. NPs can basically act as GPs--they can diagnose and treat most conditions, order tests, perform minor surgeries, and prescribe most medications (except for certain narcotics in some states; some states may also require an MD to sign off on their scripts, I'm not 100% sure what the limits of their prescribing abilities are), and they can specialize and open their own practices--our older daughter's pediatrician was an RNP, and a lot of drugstore Doc-in-a-Boxes are staffed by NPs.

So yeah, I think you're right and the "nurses" you're talking to are studying to be Nursing Assistants or LPNs. Nothing wrong with either of those jobs--they're necessary and they can be very skilled and helpful--but they're not nurses the way people usually think of nurses. My mom spent years getting her BScN, and I used to help her study all the time. It's a shitload of stuff to learn.

(I don't mean to denigrate UK medical professionals at all, but the impression I got in the UK was that their nurses are more like LPNs than American RNs, or at least that most of their nurses were more like that--the nursing Sisters, or maybe the Sisters are the ones with more education? I was never clear on that, lol. But UK doctors don't receive as much education and training as American doctors, either, from the info I looked up when I was there, so...)