DOES John Hinton (You Say, Monday, March 17) really want nurses to learn how to "scrub, clean, polish and dust" in order that they can reach the heady heights of an old-time Matron?

As a trained nurse of 11 years, I can assure Mr Hinton I have cleaned many a bedpan and have folded hundreds of hospital corners as part of my job.

In my profession, I have listened to people in anguish, been shouted at by people in physical and mental pain, aided in resuscitating someone having a heart attack, delivered prescribed intravenous drugs and cared for patients who have just undergone bypass surgery.

I've held hands with someone to keep them company in their last hours of life and laughed with someone, at their instigation, who'd just managed to have their bowels open for the first time in nine days.

I keep abreast of recent research developments, teach student nurses what is considered to be best practice and always endeavour to keep the patient, whoever they are and whatever they stand for, as the main focus of my attention.

I am very proud of my profession and can't imagine doing anything else which gives me so much back - just like many other trained nurses.

Nursing is not about cleaning cupboards or achieving power. Nurses are not angelic martyrs or sergeant-major types.

Nursing today is a research-based profession and as a result has a code of conduct.

But nursing is a profession apart as it encompasses such a wide range of skills. These skills require intelligence, knowledge, insight, strength and "something else".

What it does not require is a power mad task-oriented matron whose main aim is for the nurse to be queen of the sluice and a martyr to her marigolds.

DELLA LEWIS RGN,

Ombersley Road,

Worcester.