A few incidents have recently made me sit back and reflect on the perception the general public has of the nursing profession. The first incident centred on a discussion about the levels of wages between the industrial sector and the NHS. Apparently, experienced distribution transport managers are in equally short supply as are anaesthetic and recovery nurses. In a large organisation a transport manager would have similar work patterns and responsibilities as that of a Charge Nurse or Sister in a busy operating theatre. The going rate for such hard to find skills is about £35,000 basic - not bad at all. However, when I asked the individual how much they thought a charge nurse or sister got paid, they replied ‘oh, about £30,000 these days.’ After I had picked myself off the floor and told him the true value, he was horrified. He had been left with the impression that nurses had had a ‘good deal’ in the recent pay awards - I wonder where that information came from?

Pulse oximeters are widely used in nursing practice. They are easy to read, need no user calibration and are simple to operate. The ease of use may give rise to the view that nurses have no difficulties using pulse oximetry monitoring in patient care because it is straightforward and only requires the ‘application’ of bioscientific knowledge gained in pre-registration education.

The reason for choosing this subject is because it is highly relevant since Trusts are currently in the process of establishing posts in accordance with the National Health Service (NHS) ‘Executive's Health Service Circular 217’ (1999). The political background for setting up these posts stems from the document ‘Making a Difference: Strengthening the nursing, midwifery and health visitor contribution to health and healthcare’ (Department of Health 1999a). It is also relevant in connection with nurses in general, as they are not being recognised nor rewarded for their abilities. This is especially so in PACUs where the nurse's image is low and PACU nursing is not a recognised speciality, such as Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nursing, Coronary Care Unit (CCU) nursing, High Dependency Unit (HDU) nursing and so forth. From personal experience, it has been observed that well qualified and highly experienced staff leave the clinical environment for positions in management, sales or even leave nursing altogether when no further career advancement is possible in the clinical field.

The BMJ has always been recognised as a leading medical journal for a wide range of subjects, and has always been useful for nurses to access for up to date and current medical opinion. Recently the BMJ has diversified to take on a more political nature, with its content reflecting a more proactive approach to influencing health care policy in the United Kingdom by the medical profession. As such the BMJ has become extremely useful for identifying opinions of current ‘hot topics’ for nurses that are headline news such as nurse consultants, hospital administration and central government policy. However, one problem remains, trying to find the original copy in the library will remain difficult. After spending the best part of an hour to suddenly realise that ‘how silly you are for not realising that BMJ March 1997 is filed in the British Journal of Nursing section 1998!!’ is often a frustrating and demoralising experience - particularly if after finding the article you find it has nothing to do with the subject that you are researching. This problem is to be banished forever with the BMJ website. The full BMJ is available free on line. The excellent search engine is particularly useful and is accurate when matching target articles. All articles are available for ‘full text’ downloads free of charge.