What language do nurses speak? (and more importantly…What do we do?)

(Old writing I dug out that I never did anything with… about 3 years old, but still timely. Touched off by a blog post from Nurse-Link through Monster and then a post by The Intelligent Nurse – http://blog.theintelligentnurse.com/, I figured this was a good time to continue this seemingly unending discussion )

Nurses and Advertising: I went to a function this weekend with my techy, business-minded husband at a strange place; no ‘place’ is not a good word … uhm … well it was more like a summer camp for Advertising Junkies, in the foothills of Austin, Texas. I begin by telling you this because the thoughts for this article came out of my listening to what transpired there. Therefore, I begin by giving a majority of the creative credit presented in this article to the guy running the show down there in Austin, Roy H. Williams (no not the basketball coach).

Sitting attentively next to my substantially gray-matter endowed husband, I obediently listened to Roy discuss the 12 languages of communication for advertising. In brief he acknowledged languages like color, music, proximity, and illumination in relation to communication, affect the final message. Basically advertising, language, and experience are closely tied. It conjured thoughts of John Locke and his philosophy of human understanding, but that is an entirely different post. Listening to the presentation, I was struck with several thoughts; one of them being ‘maybe nurses should take a few courses in advertising?’

Do we really have no idea what we are or what we do? The nursing profession and nurses have had a difficult problem for decades; the problem of transferring what it is we do and what we have to offer to each other, our students, our patients, and the public in general. Not only do we have difficulty transferring this information, but when we can articulate it (I use the term ‘articulate’ loosely understanding, the multifaceted nature of communication) pithiness is not often our forte. (Please note that I am including myself foremost in this observation. In fact, I should probably front the line on this one.) This problem was rekindled for me recently when I had to articulate to a group of nurses why I think they should continue with their education to receive a bachelor’s degree, other than to ‘get into graduate school’.

Nurses, if you have never had anyone ask you “what do nurses do?”… You will. I have found that if you have to give the answer in 20 words or less, trust me, you are probably not going to make the editorial cut.

How then, do we begin to learn how to communicate what nursing is to others? Why do we fail to educate our students on this art when they are in school? If we begin to work on how we communicate, so that we can clearly express what we are about, would that mean asking “what language is needed to accomplish this task”?

Problems from our own ‘special’ language: Communicating nursing to others is a personal and also a global undertaking that has the power to bolster individual nurses, nursing as a profession, nursing science, and the health of not only individuals but an entire world. It will take a different set of language tools than many of us are accustomed to and an understanding of the power of words. My husband often tells me that he observes me utilize different language skills when I enter “nurse mode” and then as quickly as he observes this mode a glazed over look enters his eyes. He then promptly does one of three things: leaves the room, rolls his eyes, or yells at the kids to come and entertain him.

I can’t blame him. Oh how I hate the phrase “fluid volume deficit”. Everyone else in the world knows that when a person is low on water, that they are dehydrated. Even my mother, the accountant, knows that. We teach our students to speak nursing diagnosis, NIC, NOC and NANDA to pass boards, but do they apply much of that language later on? More importantly if they continue to speak that language who else can understand them?

If the human I have lived with for the last 14 years cannot understand my nursing language, then how will others?

I will post more on this in a few days, but I am seriously looking for insight here. Thoughts fellow nurses?