"Lizzie, if you have your whole brain engaged and still spout this twaddle, I'm surprised you're allowed out on your own. You don't listen do you? Ever? To anyone?"

Oh, you'd be surprised who I listen to, Timmando. Mostly those for whom I've the greatest respect.

Dealing with each of your points above in turn.....

Er...not ALL nurses, but some may have asked for this.

A high standard of education (and more importantly, intelligence) has always been required to be a nurse, so please don't be patronising to nurses.

Nurses have always had a 'hands-on' approach to their training...er..they use their hands a lot, to er...nurse their patients, and you ain't gonna learn that from a book.

Experienced nurses, with no degrees, will be sniffily looked down upon by those withh degrees. Luckily, some bright spark has thought about that problem and is trying to get the older non-degreed nurses degreed up, using their experience as...er...A DEGREE!   (yes, you couldn't really make it up, could you! Older nurses have just the right experience to gain degrees, in retro...as those now studying for the er...New Degree! HA!)

All nurses WERE trained to be er...nurses within the old two year courses. Of course things get updated and move on, or people choose to specialise in this or that. Geez, that happens if you're a chef, a councillor, a burglar, or a dustmen...Don't be so pedantic, please.

Just think, soon they'll have to study for 30 years to become nurses, because there'll be so much clinical knowledge that they'll spend their entire career in training.

Oh...and the organisation who deals with patients, isn't at all keen on this idea, because they feel that nurses will lose the very essence of what it is to be a nurse..and that is the caring ethic, which will somehow become lost within the scientific knowledge part..

And yes, I am allowed out on my own, but only for short periods of time..so I choose to spend those periods of time with people who are kind, intelligent, non-sniffy, non-patronising, and soooo definitely NOT prats.

Thankooooo.