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Nurses are called ‘angels in white.’ I think it is a manifestation of selfish prejudices against nurses who are expected to be ‘neat and clean looking and obedient’ that remain at medical sites.

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Mitsuko Nakashima, a former nurse and now a Tokyo Healthcare University professor specializing in nursing management. She was commenting on rules for nurses at hospitals in Japan, such as their socks must be white, they cannot wear cardigans over their short-sleeved uniforms when they are around patients, even in winter, and they must not hydrate themselves, even with water, at nurses’ stations. Instead, they have to wait until their lunch break.

© Asahi Shimbun

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"Angels in white?" At my local clinic they have a light pink uniform.... Kawaii!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Not to mention, I don't think I've ever seen a male nurse in Japan. At least not in hospitals.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

and they must not hydrate themselves, even with water, at nurses’ stations. Instead, they have to wait until their lunch break

That’s quite a physical torture, especially on hot summer days etc. Now I can imagine why many want to leave the job, when additionally to the hard work and stress at lo2 wages , this physical harassment is applied to them. Isn’t such officially ruling of denying hydration even a case that could and should be brought to a justice court immediately?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

There is nothing wrong with expecting health care personal to be neat and clean looking, that is justified from the point of view of transmission of pathogens in hospitalary settings and obviously includes everybody else working in a hospital, the part about obedience I can agree, but I fail to see how being called a white angel would imply absolute obedience (unless you consider doctors as gods, which is usually not the case).

Health care services are being modernized around the world based on scientific evidence of efficiency and sanitation, if rules on a clinic or hospital are based solely on esthetics and run contrary to best medical practices then they should be abandoned, a healthy environment should be promoted for both the personnel and the patients and things that are only in the way have no place there, even if they would make for better business.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Grew up in a nursing environment with my mother eventually becoming a senior professor of nurse education at a leading university hospital.

She constantly battled the old school authoritarianism of the kings of the system - the doctors and medical admin.

She won many battles and achieved benefits for the nursing school , staff and students.

This was in Australia 30 ~ 40 years ago.

The regimentation of the system here, together with pay and conditions and an inability to move into a modern space sees the nursing world struggling.

I know many nurses here through work and they all are dedicated and "hang in" there because they love their jobs, but conditions just wear them down.

Nurses are the backbones of hospitals - the # 1 piece in the medical system.

Give them the adult respect they deserve.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

I have known many nurses in my lifetime, including my own family members. Tough job to do.

In Japan, we have several long-term nurses for friends.

I discovered I had cancer. From the discovery to post-op treatment I attended three different hospitals with more than 20 healthcare workers. I was very impressed from the beginning to the end with their attitudes and skills. I did not have a single criticism.

"Angel in white" would be some western Christian term.

All the nurses I was treated by, had different uniforms to wear. All with tops and pants and comfortable shoes. Impossible to see what socks they would wear. They wore many different colors, rarely white.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Physicians, well, most often male physicians, despite being little more than bio-tech support, often seem trained into arrogance and authoritarianism which I suppose is a good personality defense when one is inadvertently (unavoidable in our current primitive knowledge state) killing people. Without nurses and as I understand it, the physician caused (iatrogenic) toll would be much greater without the error checking of these underpaid and highly dedicated staff who are the eyes, ears, and 'hands-on' of any medical organization. But organized medicine is hierarchical and, like any hierarchical social structure, favors arrogance and authoritarianism, cannot function without it, and nurses are not in the top tier and in any society that embraces authoritarianism, the lower tiers are subjected to arbitrary constraints by the top tiers for whom power is a pleasure. And the only solution for it is the unified resistance of the constrained. Japanese nurses need 'organizers' and to be taught their true value and demand change as an indispensable group, or show the power structure what a disaster that 'medicine' would be without them.

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Nurse in Japan typically earns around 418,000 JPY per month. Salaries range from 196,000 JPY (lowest) to 661,000 JPY (highest).

The median salary is 443,000 JPY per month, which means that half (50%) of people working as Nurse(s) are earning less than 443,000 JPY while the other half are earning more than 443,000 JPY.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

For my only operation I had in Japan I was treated extremely well, with kindness and patience by all the nurses involved. Not allowing them to hydrate is torture, that hospital should be brought to justice!

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Just talking to a nurse (right now) and it seems that she doesn’t have a problem with her uniform nor is it impossible to hydrate at most times that we mutually convenient in her hospital.

There are more important points that Nakashima should be addressing, not only those which she has personally to experienced.

What is more concern to me is that nurses (in Japan) are not being trained adequately or to do more procedures nor are they being recompensed adequately for the work they do

Receiving adequate time off for personal development and recovery from their tiring work is also a factor.

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