PSA: Telling nurses "you're so smart you could have been a doctor" is an insult to my chosen profession. I respect & admire many of my physician colleagues, but never wanted to be one. Nursing requires intelligence and is an admirable profession. We are not handmaidens. 1/

I always ask my students why they chose nursing. Never once has anyone said because they didn't think they were smart enough to be a doctor, nor that they couldn't get into med school. They specifically chose nursing because they wanted to be with & support their patients 2/

Or because they had an encounter with the healthcare system & nurses and admired them. Or because they want to improve our systems & provisions of care. Or because a nurse helped them & made them feel safe they wanted to do the same for others 3/

If you think your nurse is smart and doing a great job, please tell them thank you and why - not that they should have been someone else. Nursing is often a thankless profession & a thank you (and wearing a mask) shows appreciation better than a backhanded compliment.