The Narrow Lens of Nursing as a Job and Not a Profession
I’m sure some of us joined the profession of nursing because we needed a job, while others had a calling, but however we got here I hope we all saw that we were entering into a profession (trying to be super hopeful with that statement). Somewhere along the line, many nurses stopped seeing themselves as part of a profession and started seeing themselves as workers completing tasks. It’s not intentional, it’s the result of years of system conditioning. We are taught to clock in, take report, perform our nursing magic for 12 hours, document, and repeat. Day after day, shift after shift. In the process, the broader role of nursing, the power, the influence, the professional responsibility, fades into the background noise of alarms, policies, scripted messages and language for patient satisfaction scores, and productivity metrics. Drink the KoolAid and smile as your nursing soul starts to take the shape of the institutions logo!
When nurses see only their daily tasks, they lose sight of the collective influence of the profession. The nurse who advocates for one patient has impact in the moment. But the nurse who advocates for better policy, staffing, education, and systems, has impact that echoes for generations. The cost of failing to see this distinction is enormous.
The cost is measured in burnout, where nurses feel powerless because they’ve been taught their power lives only in the bedside shift. It’s measured in policy decisions made without nurses present because too few see themselves as policy advocates. It’s measured in stagnant professional growth, where potential leaders never step forward because they were never told they already lead every day.
The cost also shows up in how the public views nursing. If nurses define themselves by their tasks, the public will too. If we talk about our worth in terms of “short staffing” and “extra shifts,” and material things, we reinforce the idea that our value is labor, not leadership.
The profession of nursing was never meant to be confined to the bedside, even though the Lady with the LAMP would have you believe it was so! It was meant to extend into leadership, education, research, innovation, and governance. Yet, too often, nurses are disconnected from professional organizations, unaware of how policies are written, or disengaged from conversations shaping the future of healthcare locally, nationally, and globally.
Reclaiming that broader vision begins with reframing identity, from employee to professional, from doer to driver. It means asking, How does my work today shape the profession tomorrow? It means joining professional organizations and their committees, voting in the associations, mentoring the next generation, publishing ideas, and demanding seats at the tables where decisions are made.
Nursing is not a job, it’s a profession built on purpose, science, and service. Seeing only the day-to-day role limits not just the nurse, but the entire profession’s potential to evolve and lead. The cost of a narrow view is too high. The return on a broader vision? Transformational.
