Discussion about this post

User's avatar
claire m fagin's avatar

Angel is a temporary sobriquet with an opposite side—-devil or course. We don’t need these or others. It indicates a continuing lack of knowledge about nursing and nurses.

Heroes are time controlled and this term disappears quickly as we have seen with Covid

Expand full comment
Mari, the Happy Wanderer's avatar

So happy to hear about your clear mammogram! That gorgeous smile says it all!

I strongly agree with you that when we call nurses angels, we absolve ourselves of the responsibility to pay them adequately and to ensure they have a manageable workload. It’s the same thing with teachers. As David Graeber noted in his excellent book Bullshit Jobs, the attitude of people who have BS jobs seems to be that if your job is meaningful, that should count as part of your compensation. No. Only compensation is compensation. And in any case, look what happens when we don’t pay these crucial workers adequately: staffing shortages, which hurt all of us.

Expand full comment
24 more comments...

No posts