I came across a poem today, on the Internet, entitled “Nurses Must Be Angels by Profession. It’s a short, sappy bit of nonsense, and really grated on my nerves. This bizarre connection between angels and nurses is just one of those things that has entrenched itself into the nursing profession, and doesn’t show any signs of letting up. Like a blood sucking parasite, I would say, for it surely doesn’t evoke a positive image of nurses, or a realistic one. Nurse leaders and advocates are always whining about how the media downplays nurses, show unrealistic portrayals of them, yadda yadda, but yet, they are amazingly tight lipped when it comes to confronting this angel thing.

In fact, the opposite is often true. Many of the nursing leaders, those with quadruple PhDs following their name, dive right into the angel mythology, and speak of nursing as though each and every one of us was blessed with invisible wings, and able to flutter back and forth to heaven, meet face to face with God, and get to nap on cloud 9. They act as though nursing exists on some higher plane, elevated above the rest of all those lowly earth-bound jobs, and perpetuate the feeble notion that nursing is a noble profession where one must sacrifice herself for the good of others.

Each and everyone of them deserve to have their wings clipped. It is this very myth, this very perception that nursing is somehow a calling, a job that is somehow more connected to heaven than others—it is this nurse mythology that has helped keep nurses at the bottom of the barrel for so long. And rest assured, the angel image often equated with nurses is not one of empowerment or strength. Hold your breath if you’re waiting to see the Archangel Michael or Gabriel rise up and don a white cap. We should only be so lucky, but nurse angel images are not about empowering oneself, or being strong and bold. Instead, nurses get the stereotype cherub, something along the lines of an angel that only Disney could create. Tinkerbelle, perhaps. She’s a fairy but hey, both have wings and belong to the supernatural, so who can really tell the difference. Tinkerbelle is the quintessential nurse angel—small, fragile, weak, and powerless.

It is ironic that it is often nurses themselves that perpetuate this image. Nurse writers often pen these sickeningly sweet tales about the nobility of nursing, how nurses involves the sacrifice of oneself, how nursing requires compassion, and indeed, is a profession reserved for the few, the proud (sort of like the Marines). The image of the nurse/angel continues to proliferate on television, movies, books, websites. In fact, a book was published a few years ago called We Band of Angels, about the American nurses trapped on Baatan when the Japanese invaded. How insulting can you get, and what a disservice to those brave women. How about calling the book, We Band of Warriors, for example, or We Band of Soldiers?

Why is it that out of all the professions, only nurses are burdened with this angel idiocy? Do you ever hear about men being called angels? What about the Doctors without Borders, who volunteer to work in war torn areas, in developing nations, among the poorest of the poor? How about Peace Corp workers? What about the volunteers who work for Habitat for Humanity? And how about everyone else who contributes to the care of a hospital patient; the lab techs, the physical therapists, the speech therapists, the residents, the aides, and all of the assorted technicians? Does anyone ever refer to any of these people that I’ve just mentioned as angels of mercy? Do they get stamped with the Tinkerbelle image?

Of course, what I just wrote will undoubtedly ignite the wrath of many nurses, those who’ve been spoon fed the image of sacrificial angel and may actually believe it. I guess thinking that you’re an angel and part of a noble profession makes being overworked and underpaid easier to digest. Believing in a myth is far more simple than standing up for oneself and trying to improve your working conditions.

So how did nurses evolve from human to apparition. Stay tuned for the next installment.

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