Thinking about becoming a nurse? Care enough about helping sick people to get better? Want to have a career that allows you to care for people? Not if you have a visible tattoo you won’t…at least in Missouri, anyway.
Just when I think that society has taken a giant leap forward and stopped looking at the outside of a person instead of their character, along comes another slap to the nuts of reason.
This time the back assward attitude comes from the Missouri Southern State University nursing school. Needless to say quite a few students there are up in arms about it, but according to the 2009 MSSU handbook for nursing students:
“Any personal enhancement, adornment or coloring that causes undue attention to oneself is strictly prohibited. Any tattoos that are visible when attired in the student uniform (excluding laboratory coat) are prohibited.”
In other words, if you have a visible tattoo that a patient could see and become distracted by, you are incapable of doing the job. Hell, and I thought those enhanced silicone mammary glands were distracting enough to keep nursie from giving me a sponge bath. I wonder if they are including those anatomy stiffening puppies in that ban as well? They should. I hate to say it, but size 40 DD enhanced hooters would call more undue attention from me than a passing shot at a Tinkerbell wrist band.
I’ll bet they aren’t barring students who have artificially enhanced knockers that have the professor playing pocket pool while he teaches the class.
According to Rod Surber, director of public information at Missouri Southern, “Essentially, the reason for the policy is because some hospitals have a policy against tattooing. We have to meet the highest standards so we can place our students in any institution.”
*sniff-sniff* I smell bullshit! Well, OK, there is a bit of truth there, but not enough to warrant kicking a student to the curb simply because they have a visible tattoo. According to All Nurses.Com, several nurses have visible, or partially visible tattoos, and it has presented zero problems in doing the job they trained for.
The bullshit I smell comes from denying someone the chance to at least try for the job simply because they have a tattoo. After all, they are the one paying for school. If it was public and free it would be a different story, but when you are taking hard earned cash from someone’s pocket, then I feel it is up to them whether they have a tattoo, or not. Your job is teaching…not social engineering, Dumbass.
At least MSSU should provide those students with a refund of their tuition so they can find a more progressive school that deserves their cash…Yeah. I’ll just bet that is going to happen.