16 Crazy Nursing Facts from Around the World!

by ScrubsMag.com, April 19, 2012

16 Interesting Facts About Nursing Around the World

Just as there are different cultural mores and taboos across the globe, nurses conduct themselves differently from one country to another.  Some of these practices may even shock you!  Here are some little known facts about nursing around the world.

1.  You don't have to renew your license in Japan.  Once an RN, you're one for life. (You can lose your license if you break the law or "compromise the dignity of the profession.")

2.  One in every 23 Japanese nurses works more than 60 hours of overtime per month.

3.  In many parts of China, patients have to take a number to get medical attention.  They start lining up outside the hospital at 3am, and often there's a suffocating crush when the doors open.

4.  Nurses at ill-funded Chinese hospitals have to reuse supplies such as gloves and even syringes.

5.  Nursing students aren't allowed to speak to their professors in Vietnam.  They learn through lectures, textbooks and recitation drills, with no experience with real patients until they're on the job. 

6.  Hospitals in Mexico only use gloves "when necessary."

7.  After working as a nurse for only a year, Mexican nurses can choose to specialize (with no extra training) in an area of medicine, such as critical care or emergency nursing.

8.  Nurses working in Australia must pass a physical health examination, including a chest x-ray, to be able to work in the hospital.

9.  Up until just 100 years ago, sick Brazilians sought care from folk healers and family-based medicine.  It took the coffee industry and the need to control disease to port cities to overhaul the health care system (they brought in 31 North American nurses to start!).

10.  Nurses in Saudi Arabia aren't permitted to tell their royal patients when it's time for assessment or when to take medications.  Most royals travel with a private nurse - and a staff of about 20 - who see to their personal medication needs. 

11.  In Saudi Arabian hospitals, nurses can "unofficially" work only eight hours of a scheduled 12 hour shift.  During the remaining four hours, the patients are on their own. 

12.  Iraqi women who are nurses have to be home before 2pm, and are not allowed to touch men who are not their husbands or sons.  It's not uncommon for a doctor to do the nurse's work. 

13.  In Tanzania, there are only 4 nurses and midwives per 10,000 people. 

14.  In a study at a U.S. hospital, more than 80% of ED nurses believe the phase of the moon affects patients and their mental health. 

15.  48% of the nurses at a Chicago hospital believe that saying the word "quiet" aloud will jinx them and make their shift more difficult. 

16.  A significant number of doctors in the Philippines are heading back to school...to become nurses!  They then come to the U.S. to make more money as nurses than they earn as MD's in their own country.