IMELDA COYNE,
Sir, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, March 28th) seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that educating nurses to degree level will not improve their nursing skills. Nurses are continually portrayed as "caring, ministering angels" with the implication that they do not require any education in order to be a "good" nurse. There is little recognition that nursing is a highly skilled profession that requires good grounding in both theoretical and clinical instruction. Is Mr Myers suggesting that educating nurses to degree level will make them uncaring?
It is an erroneous assumption that nursing is a job that any person can do provided they are caring. If Mr Myers was having open heart surgery and required expert nursing practice, would he still be advocating that nurses are not educated to degree level? Why stop at nursing? Why not suggest that other health professionals such as doctors need not be educated to degree level?
For far too long, nurses' considerable expertise and essential role within the multidisciplinary team has remained largely unacknowledged. It is disappointing that such outdated attitudes continue to be published by the media. - Yours, etc.,
IMELDA COYNE,
Director of B.Sc.
in Nursing,
School of Nursing,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9.