Heart Attack Grill (20/20 ABC show)

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Thought for sure I would see an uproar about this restaurant in Az featured on ACB's 20/20. The waitresses wear slutty Media-type 'nurses' outfits and roll their bloated patrons to their car in a w/c after they gorge themselves on unhealthy foods. It was featured on 20/20s Gimme a Break last pm. John Stossel says Gimme a Break about nurses being upset over the image. IMO the person who was defending the "real nurses" did a very poor job.

Anyone else see it??

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

a british poll shows that 54% of british men fantasize about "the naughty nurse." they also fantasize about maids and flight attendants -- traditionally female, service-oriented jobs without the pay or prestige that come with more traditionally male jobs. the poll suggests that a prevalent association of nursing with sexuality may promote sexual violence in the workplace, discourage potential nurses from entering the worplace, encourage an attitude of disrespect toward nurses and weaken nurses' claims for adequate resources. this lack of respect together with the education required to be a nurse and the difficulty of the profession may contribute to the nursing shortage. after all, i paid for and sweat through four years of college so i could star in men's fantasies -- didn't you?

http://www.nursingadvocacy.org/news/2006/aug/24_fantasy.html

Honestly? I've been single 2.5 years if some guy wants to fantasize about me I hope and pray he lets me know!!!

Honestly? I've been single 2.5 years if some guy wants to fantasize about me I hope and pray he lets me know!!!

Good for you. Just don't don't mix bussiness with pleasure.

Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.
a british poll shows that 54% of british men fantasize about "the naughty nurse." they also fantasize about maids and flight attendants -- traditionally female, service-oriented jobs without the pay or prestige that come with more traditionally male jobs. the poll suggests that a prevalent association of nursing with sexuality may promote sexual violence in the workplace, discourage potential nurses from entering the worplace, encourage an attitude of disrespect toward nurses and weaken nurses' claims for adequate resources. this lack of respect together with the education required to be a nurse and the difficulty of the profession may contribute to the nursing shortage. after all, i paid for and sweat through four years of college so i could star in men's fantasies -- didn't you?

"nurses are no. 1...in male sexual fantasies"

this is so important.

Specializes in OR.

You know, I don't offend easily and actually at times can have a pretty raunchy sense of humor. But this does bug me somewhat. There are plenty of male patients who think we are there to be eye candy and will think nothing of trying to feel you up. I've been an RN all of 3 months and this has happened twice. I'm not even counting the pervy old man docs that will try something while you're scrubbed! It's a horrible thing to say, but I will not feel bad when one of these overfed, lardbutt perverts has an MI and the floozy hoochiemama nurse is unable to do anything to help...

Specializes in Flight, ER, Transport, ICU/Critical Care.

BIG DEAL.

I actually thought it was funny in an absurd, ironic kinda way.

There are so many other true issues out there - I thought it was much ado about nothing:p

Now about the image thing, so what...? Hot "nurses" at a burger joint may be offensive in some circles - but REAL nurses that come to REAL work sans basic grooming, uniforms/scrubs that look like they have been slept in or "reeking" of strong odors (perfume, cigarette smoke, animals) really offend me.

PICK YOUR BATTLES!

Practice SAFE! ;)

I was not offended by this food establishment. everyone knows that hese are not real nurses but waitress staff. It is time we give ourselves a break and focus our attention on bigger issues. We as a society have become to sensitive to such small issues. The time the BON spent on this issue could have done more good focused on such issues as manditory nurse/pt ratio legislation, and other real nursing issues.

Give me a break? yes, give me a break and when we start trying to govern this type of activity what will be next, Holloween costumes? TV shows like ER, Scrubs, Gray's Anatomy? These are not real Drs. or nurses either. Should these shows be told to stop saying they are nurses also?

Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.

This didn't offend me as much as amuse me. Nurses get "imitated" on many occasions, Halloween, New Years's Eve, to name a couple. Everybody knows these gals are not nurses, and everybody also knows real nurses do not dress that way when they are in nurse mode.

What did offend me and my co-workers several years ago, however, was a catalog sent to our unit from a scrubs company. All the photos of scrubs were those modeled by young (too young to be nurses), thin (too thin to represent the real nursing population) and posed (in very titillating, provocative poses.) You know, the kind where the females in scrub pants were sitting with their legs wide open. Now that was disgusting, and I wrote a letter to the catalog company telling them so.

I did get a response, something like, "we were only trying to appeal to nurses." Yeah, right, by making it look like some Mediao magazine? I think not.

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

We as a society have become to sensitive to such small issues.

It' not just this issue, it the crap-pile of small issues that have accumulated where the trampy-nurse image is concerned, and frankly, i'm just fed up with sitting back and acting like it doesn't peez me off.

And before anyone bothers to tell me to 'get over it' or 'lighten up' as commonly done on these threads when someone vents about it, save your breath, i will not do either.

it's all too common for some people to say something offensive, and then when you're offended proclaim "i was only kidding! you need to get a sense of humor!" women have been verbally abused that way for generations. i have a sense of humor, and it's still offensive.

ruby vee said it best. women have been verbally abused that way for generations.

need i say more.

Specializes in ICU/Telemetry/Med-Surg/Case Mgmt.

I wish that I had seen this on 20/20! I realize that people will know that these are not real nurses, but it offends me because I have worked very hard for many years to reach the point I am at now.

I started as a single mom going to LPN school, worked hard to get pre-reqs for the ADN program, then worked to get pre-reqs for the BSN program. I graduated 5/06 with my BSN degree (YEAH!). In Jan. 2007 I start my FNP program.

Most people don't realize all the education that we have to have to have these degrees and licenses. Most people who had all the college hours that I have would already have a Master's degree!

After all that work, I don't appreciate be degrading by a restaurant like that. One person wearing a Halloween costume is not the same as an establishment promoting "naughty nurses".

I feel that this does give the wrong image to the uneducated person who eats in that kind of place. If we don't stand up and speak out for ourselves, others may think that we don't see anything wrong with it.

If we don't stand up for ourselves as a profession, no one else will.

Of course, all this is just IMHO!

Karen

Thought for sure I would see an uproar about this restaurant in Az featured on ACB's 20/20. The waitresses wear slutty Media-type 'nurses' outfits and roll their bloated patrons to their car in a w/c after they gorge themselves on unhealthy foods. It was featured on 20/20s Gimme a Break last pm. John Stossel says Gimme a Break about nurses being upset over the image. IMO the person who was defending the "real nurses" did a very poor job.

Sorry that I disappointed you Kriso. We taped for about 20 minutes, and I can't say that all of the quotes they used were my best. But there is little I can do to get them to choose which quotes they should use. The media is in control of their stories, not me. In the first quote however, I did get across that it's not just the heart attack grill that's the problem. It's the whole naughty nurse image and the constant sexualization of nursing. The second quote was how nurses are expected to take the naughty nurse as a "joke." But over and over again, is it really so funny? And the third quote was in response to this inane question about shouldn't physicians be upset by Dr. Pepper. He actually asked that question again later on in the interview and I gave a much fuller answer as to how their portrayal in the media is rather robust and heroic. I'm not sure why they put that kind of non-answer in there except as an opportunity to show that I could smile. Stossel did take our side.

If you read the written article about the issue here:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2661263&page=1

which is longer than the clip, it is much more apparent that Stossel came down on the side of the Center for Nursing Advocacy. John Stossel is a libertarian and does not like government interference into business, so his "Give me a Break" was not directed at us, it was directed at the Arizona Board of Nursing and the Arizona Attorney General, which he says has dropped its claim that the Grill is misrepresenting the waitresses as nurses. I have to agree that it's a really hard claim to make that people will think these waitresses are actually nurses.

Our objection is to the constant association of nurses and sex. I will post our analyses on separate threads, if I am permitted, so you can see the full nature of our arguments. Please be aware, we are a small, grass-roots 501c3 organization and I am posting information here for the purpose of information.

Sandy Summers

Executive Director

Center for Nursing Advocacy

[email protected]

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