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In Virginia LPN's usually get their training through community college courses, which include hands-on clinical "service work".

RN's get their "letters" in similar fashion to Pennsylvania.

Don't get me wrong, I've known *brilliant* nurses, who chose nursing over an M.D. ER/trauma nurses, and nurses with other specialized training are among the most impressive individuals I've met in a lifetime.

We might quibble over the definition of a dullard, you at least need a work ethic and average to slightly above average brains to get through nursing school. That said,
nurses I've known were , and their knowlege of medicine was suprisingly (to me) narrow and shallow.

In general, their thinking was not nuanced, to put it most kindly.

The nurses I worked with were not dumb as rocks...just limited in the depth and breadth of their understanding. They might simply have been out of their element, for they were being asked to contribute to insurance and medical-legal decisions.

Nurses are trained to take care of patients; insurance and medical-legal issues are not comprehensively covered in nursing school, so I can see how you would view the nurses you worked with as being limited in depth and breadth of their understanding in these areas. In today's health care market, perhaps it's time for nursing schools to cover more of the business aspect as well as patient care, but the priority of nurses has always been to take care of the patients. Why are patients admitted to the hospital? For NURSING CARE. They aren't admitted to see the doctor more often (they can do that in his/her office), and they aren't admitted for diagnostic testing (that can be done outpatient; if they are admitted for diagnostic testing, it's to receive nursing care and surveillance after the test).

However, I guess I'm like you, I can't understand why the people who work as office staff in our clinic don't understand all of the procedures that we do, med we give, etc.; I guess THEY must be limited too :)