(no subject)

[beccaelizabeth]

I was looking up what nurses wear - saw a handful of pages, concluded that while they appear to be color coded it seems different in different nhs hospitals, still didn't find the skirt or trousers data I was looking for, saw short sleeves seem a requirement.

Also was reminded that these titles seem very, very gendered. Matron, sister, midwives. I know there are blokes doing those jobs, and sometimes they get their very own title, but sometimes instead of the bloke version becoming the catch all, some men are filed under wife.

which is pretty much where i started with the daft gender system in my magic users universe, just, if society got weird about it and bundled the pronouns with the job.

... wait, i googled and learned a thing: "The word "midwife" derives from Old English, "mid" meaning "with", and "wif" meaning "woman" - that is, it refers to the person (not necessarily a woman) who is with the mother giving birth."
see there's a proportion of people who are not a mother and still give birth but the word doesn't work the way I thought it did.

Wiki says "The nursing branches of the British Armed Forces have never abandoned the term "Matron", and it is used for male as well as female officers, usually holding the rank of Major (or equivalent) or above. It was formerly used as an actual rank in the nursing services." but it doesn't have a little number to go with it. no or inadequately referenced reference, less good.

I'm annoyed finding articles about people expecting doctors to be male, haven't we fixed that yet? But people are also not always clear at the doctor or nurse distinction. ... and googling for a definition got a bbc article "are nurses the new doctors"...

so i wandered a bit and learned a thing and now this post is a lot less pointy.
but that was an interesting half hour.

Comments

[crabby_lioness]

Here's an interesting bit for you. Nursing and medical garb for the birthing room has no buttons or other fasteners, as superstition taught that they might fasten in the baby inside the womb. All knots were to be untied, belts unbuckled, etc, when entering the room. It was easier just to make all scrubs without fasteners to begin with. This was true in the American South, and spread to the rest of the country. Dunno about the UK.

[nostalgia]

When I was really small I thought nurses were trainee doctors somehow.