Lindsey Shelton, an intensive care nurse and social media influencer known as Scrubhacks, claims that not everyone should become a nurse, adding that prejudiced students might endanger their patients’ lives.
With 500,000 Instagram followers and 770,000 on TikTok, Shelton posted her opinion in a TikTok video titled “Hot take: Not everyone deserves to become a health care worker.” In the clip, she reacted to a nursing student who allegedly shouted at someone to go back to their country.
“Not everyone deserves to become a nurse, and I think we need to have a conversation about some of the people entering the nursing field,” she said. “Because some of you are studying to become nurses, and I’m genuinely concerned for your future patients, more specifically the ones who have demonstrated that they hold discriminatory beliefs about the very people that they will be responsible for caring for.”
“Being a nursing student hoping to become a nurse and screaming at someone, ‘Go back to your country, b****,’ is such an insane thing to say, especially outside the four walls of the hospital,” Shelton added.
“Nursing has always been one of the most trusted professions, and when you say things like that while holding this badge of honor that you want to become a nurse, it’s absolutely disgusting,” she continued.
After six years as an intensive care nurse before switching to content creation, Shelton pointed out that the words themselves weren’t her main concern.
“And what concerns me isn’t necessarily what was just said. It’s what happens when that person becomes responsible for someone else’s life, ’cause I work in the ICU, and I can tell you some of the most vulnerable people you will ever encounter are lying in hospital beds,” she explained.
“Some of them can’t speak English. Some of them can’t speak at all. Some are sedated, intubated, confused, completely dependent on the people around them to advocate for them,” Shelton said. “And unfortunately for the patient lying in the hospital bed, they don’t get to choose whether or not the nurse assigned to them respects them in their existence.”
“So when I see someone preparing to enter this profession openly expressing that kind of prejudice, I have many concerns,” she concluded.
Shelton notes that discrimination in health care takes forms more subtle than refusal to treat.
“Discrimination and racism are not new to health care. It’s very systemic, and if you’ve worked here at any length of time, you already know that,” Shelton said. “And discrimination doesn’t always look like the provider, a health care worker, openly refusing to care for that patient. More often than not, it looks more like the health care worker dismissing symptoms, dismissing concerns, not believing a patient.”
She emphasized that she did not expect people who entered the profession to be perfect.
“I don’t expect nurses to be perfect people. I don’t expect nursing students to come into this profession without biases. We all have biases that we’re responsible for recognizing and changing,” Shelton said. “But I do expect you to understand that your patient’s humanity is not conditional on your personal beliefs.”
Shelton also stressed that good grades and passing the NCLEX, the national nursing licensing exam, were not sufficient.
“You can have the highest GPA, you can pass nursing school, you can pass the NCLEX, but clinical knowledge without ethical responsibility is not enough,” she said.
Moreover, she encouraged nursing programs to react to any complaints.
“And nursing schools have a responsibility to take credible concerns about discriminatory conduct very seriously, because they’re not just preparing the students to pass an exam. They’re preparing people to be trusted with human lives,” Shelton said.
“If you cannot extend basic human dignity to someone outside the hospital, it’s fair to question whether you’re prepared to protect their dignity inside one,” she added.
@scrubhacks use your voice even when it’s not perfect #nurse #nursingstudent #nursingschool #nursetok #nurselife
♬ original sound – Lindsey Shelton
Shelton has attracted her audience by combining humor with advocacy, sharing both good and bad moments in the health care industry with “no sugarcoating” in her bio. In 2023, she launched the podcast “Friends & Enemas,” which covers tough, funny, important, and sometimes disgusting topics in health care. In 2024, she launched the merchandise line with Dr. Betsy Grunch, a physician and social media influencer known as Lady Spine Doc.
Her brand partnerships include Fabletics Scrubs, HOKA, and Helix Sleep. In her memoir, she mentions that Fabletics is “the only line that fully covers a tall girl’s ankles,” that Hoka suits her working environment “because nursing should be an Olympic sport,” and that nurses who finish their shifts deserve “sleep that masquerades as death.”
Along with her husband, whom she has been married to for ten years, Shelton founded Scrubstr, a platform where people can leave anonymous reviews of health care facilities.
According to Shelton, nursing was her “plan B.” In 2025, she started to try her hand at acting, hosting, speaking, and presenting. Mental health and animal welfare are her passions.
