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| Advertisement Sponsored Links | | | | No. 31 | 
Mar 23, 2009, 12:19 PM
 Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media? Originally Posted by BigIsleBound  Well, please don't throw stones at me for this... but the image of nurses that I had gathered from the media is one reason that I had never considered nursing as a career until recently. Nurses are portrayed as mindless servants of doctors, who spend every waking moment trying to seduce married doctors and breaking up marriages so that they don't have to spend their days cleaning up poop. It didn't help matters that I have personally known families in which this has occured, where a doctor abandoned his family to run off with a nurse. Plus the belief that CNA's etc are "nurses" has people looking down on the whole profession.
I am right with you on this. I would probably have been a nurse much, much sooner had I realized the challenges involved.
From the media portrayal (remember, even patients don't really see what we do), I thought nurses were sappy fluff-headed people who couldn't cut it elsewhere.
One commercial run here in the early 90s planted a seed in my head that this image may be untrue. It said something like: Are you strong enough? are you smart enough? Can you keep up? Can you do the math, the science? Do you have the courage (shows resucitation shock) to save lives? Then maybe you could be a nurse.
I wish they still showed that commercial or something like it. People in the general public have NO idea what we do or how exciting nursing is.
 | | No. 32 |
Apr 16, 2009, 09:23 AM
Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media?
One tv show that I find doesn't bash Nurse's into the ground with idiotic clothing and random disappearing acts was House.
While yes, the nurses aren't the focus of the show by any means, usually... when walking through the hospital, if you look behind the other characters, there are nurses everywhere doing something. They all wear clothes that make sense for work and are always shown to be in and out of a patients room, there when there is a code, or something else happening.
One example, I can't remember what episode per say, but someone called a code and they cut to a shot of about 6 nurses, (male and female... whoo) all running in and taking over the various tasks. They even have a no holds barred Charge Nurse who doesn't take flack off House or any of the other doctors.
I do agree though, that more often then not, nurses are protrayed miserably on television, and because of that, the general public seems to think of a small nurses dress, blonde bombshell and stilletos whenever they hear the word nurse. I told a few friends I was going to go into nursing school, and the first thing they thought of was, "Do you get to wear a sexy nurses outfit" (a joke from them, but still).
Ah well, hopefully things will someday change.
| | No. 34 |
Apr 19, 2009, 01:17 AM
Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media? Originally Posted by BigIsleBound Well, please don't throw stones at me for this... but the image of nurses that I had gathered from the media is one reason that I had never considered nursing as a career until recently. Nurses are portrayed as mindless servants of doctors, who spend every waking moment trying to seduce married doctors and breaking up marriages so that they don't have to spend their days cleaning up poop. It didn't help matters that I have personally known families in which this has occured, where a doctor abandoned his family to run off with a nurse. Plus the belief that CNA's etc are "nurses" has people looking down on the whole profession.
Yes, nurses are portrayed horribly in the media. Nursing is very stressful, and take a really strong person to survive in this profession. I wish the media would show the abuse that nurses go through..mental, physical, verbal and even sexual abuse. Nurses are very smart individuals. They have to use the brains all the time, even for the Doctor. Imagine a Doctor without a nurse...sheesh, they'd be lost. As a nursing student, a Doctor asked me to read his notes because he couldn't read his writing..he said, "Can you read that, I can't understand it"...simply pathetic right?
| | No. 35 |
Apr 19, 2009, 12:44 PM
Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media?
Yeah, it wasn't until I actually met some very intelligent nurses when a family member was in the hospital who were able to make important decisions that I even got past the whole handmaiden idea about nurses, and realized that it's something a smart ambitious person would want to do. Before that, I knew what I new about nurses from the TV. Lots of my family members and neighbors are MD's, and I would never have wanted to have the kind of subservient relationship with them that I see between nurses and MD's on TV.
This looks like it could be good... http://broadwayworld.com/article/Fal...oStar_20090416 | | No. 36 |
May 28, 2009, 09:33 PM
Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media?
Overall I would say no.
I did get to watch and episode of House the other day, and did notice there were a lot more nurses running around during codes and such than in the first season...
| | No. 37 |
May 29, 2009, 01:11 PM
Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media?
Look, even my family didn't "get" that nurses weren't handmaidens until I spent 4 weeks in a hospital. My brother was all "OMG I can't believe how well educated and responsive your nurses were in ICU." He took great pains to tell me all about how well my sistas (sorry there were only women apparently) looked after me...and them.
For my brother that was unreal because all he used to say about nurses was..."If you can't get a date, get a nurse". And no I am NOT kidding.
Of course until I was in hospital none of my family, except me, had spent any time in a hospital.
Now my family runs around telling everyone tat I am a nurse and ooooh aaaaaah isn't she marvelous etc etc! It is really cute.
| | No. 38 |
May 31, 2009, 09:16 AM
Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media?
Nurses are portrayed positively in The Tv Medical drama Holby City but the doctors are always shouting at them and telling them that they are useless and sometimes the top docs pick on junior doctors on this tv program if you have been watching holby city the last few years you will realise that Ric Griffin likes to always pick at the senior house officer Maddy and the two other nurse Maria and Donna but when he gets shouted at back like Maria did in last weeks episode he hated it and now Maddy is dead he dosn't even care probably so the media don't portray nice doctors they portray nasty mean doctors and plus the lazy and snappy nurse Donna is saying that nurses are useless and not all are
| | No. 39 |
May 31, 2009, 05:35 PM
Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media? Originally Posted by rabbitgirrl I think that, like many difficult problems, there is a matrix of causes and conditions that lead to nurses’ collective lack of self-defense in the hospital hierarchy.
Lingering feminine subservience, reinforced by the conservative nature of the demographic “helping” profession, which attracts enablers from dysfunctional families, who tend to reinforce the status-quo “victim” role
Tendency for women and other disenfranchised groups to engage in horizontal hostility, which short-circuits attempts at organization.
Poor comprehension on part of the public as to what nurses do.
I think one of the important questions to ask is not so much “Why can’t nurses defend their rights”, as it is, “Why won’t nurses defend their rights?”.
Please don’t get me wrong; I am very pro-woman and very, very pro-nurse, but nursing culture is totally whack. You are entirely correct; abusers will abuse until someone stops them, and the someone has to be us..
Your points are well-taken, especially what you said about horizontal hostility. Could it be that the culture of health care is such that we're encouraged to attack each other rather than unite? Maybe, on some level, the powers that be would rather we waste our energy fighting with each other rather than working together to really change things.
We nurses have more power than we think. Good post, Rabbitgirrl.
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Re: Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media?
NO. 
urwlcm:
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