Are You Nurse Jackie or Nurse Zoey?

[Nurse Beth]

I resisted watching Showtime's Nurse Jackie for a very long time. I'm not really a TV series person. Too much commitment. Plus I don't have Showtime. And past medical shows have usually disappointed.

But recently I watched my first episode of Nurse Jackie on Netflix. Within 2 weeks I had binge watched all seven seasons. I found the show so addictive and the storyline so compelling that I couldn't wait to watch each following episode. I'm still processing it and analyzing why it had such a hold on me.

Nurse Jackie is set in the emergency department of All Saints Hospital in New York city. The main character, Jackie, is an ED nurse, as is her perky protege, Zoey.

I got hooked because the main characters are nurses, the storyline is compelling, and Nurse Jackie herself is a train wreck. Edie Falco does such a phenomenal job of being Nurse Jackie that I feel as if I know her, that we could work side by side next shift. Or maybe I was hooked because of the secret vicarious thrill I got when Jackie mouths off to administrators and doctors (with good reason, mind you).

Categorized as a comedy/drama, it's a dark comedy and more drama than comedy. Warning- it's not PG. Not for everyone and not a feel-good Hallmark type series. (There's way more sex going on in that ED than any ED I've ever worked in).

The show is really about drug addiction. Jackie is a top performing ED nurse...and also a pill-popping addict. At first, no one knows except for Eddie, the Pharmacist, who supplies Jackie with pain pills and who incidentally is also having an affair with her.

As time goes on, Jackie's drug use increases and her world starts spinning out of control. Colleagues at work begin to suspect she is using. Fentanyl patches go missing. Narcotic counts are off. At home, Jackie's husband, Kevin, divorces her while their two daughters are hurt by her unpredictable behavior and begin to act out. The story goes on to show the high cost of addiction.

As soon as it aired back in 2009, the show was instantly controversial. Some nursing associations protested that a show featuring a nurse doing many of the truly shocking and harmful things Jackie does should be taken off the air.

But there's no denying Nurse Jackie is much more realistic than most medical shows involving nurses. It shows a new doctor who misdiagnoses a patient, despite Jackie's warning. As a result, the patient dies. There's trauma and drama in every episode, craziness that only ED nurses know too well. There's short-staffing and frequent flyers.

Drug use aside, Jackie is a committed clinician whose passion is helping patients. Then there's Zoey. Zoey follows Jackie everywhere, a newbie soaking in everything. You fall in love with charming Zoey and admire Jackie while being horrified at her behavior- the behavior of a user.

Personality-wise, there's a version of a Nurse Jackie and a Nurse Zoey on every nursing unit.

Nurse Jackie

Nurse Jackie is a drug addict who steals your heart. A sociopath and a saint. Nurse Jackie breaks the rules, she's irreverent and a rogue nurse at times...but only when it helps patients. On one episode, she performs an emergency needle decompression of a tension pneumothorax, saving the life of a cab driver. Completely out of nursing scope of practice, but there was no doctor available, and Jackie saved his life. What would you do?

She rules her ED. She's witty and willful. Bossy and biting. Cynical and compassionate.

Tough with a heart, she cares about each of her patients and fights for what they need.

She has zero work-life balance. A nurse to the core, her entire identity is based on being a nurse. She once said "if I'm not a nurse...I'm no one. I'm nothing." Sad. Outspoken and mouthy, she's brutally honest (except when she's lying :).

The Nurse Jackie on most every unit? They are the ultimate pro, the gruff charge nurse, the nurse everyone respects and looks up to. They even intimidate doctors.

Nurse Zoey

Nurse Zoey, Jackie's protege, is soft and self-effacing. She wears kitty scrubs. Sweet and spunky, she lacks Jackie's sharp edges. She's adorably quirky and in addition to starting her nursing career, she is moving out of her parent's house and dating a paramedic she met at All Saint's.

Unlike Jackie, who rarely filters herself, Zoey chooses her words carefully and tactfully. She is honest and sensitive. Nurse Zoey is becoming an excellent ED nurse in her own right under Jackie's tutelage but doesn't yet know how good she is.

Zoey is a best friend to Jackie to the end. She's loyal, supportive and refuses to believe anything negative about Jackie, her hero.

Is Nurse Zoey really just a younger Nurse Jackie? Idealistic and inexperienced?

Are you a Nurse Jackie or a Nurse Zoey? No doubt you, like most of us, are a complex person. Maybe you are a mix of both, a strong nurse with frailties.

And maybe that's one of the points of the show's writers.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Steph I want so badly to go on medical mission......your trips to Vietnam inspire me. Can I come too????

That would be great! 2.5 weeks in a hot, humid, beautiful Vietnam. Setting up in rural villages and seeing sometimes up to 300 patients. And not having the bureaucratic nightmare of American Healthcare breathing down your neck. Weekends spent exploring wonderful cities and eating great food.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Next time, gonna take Spidey as well. His big sis went with me on my 2nd trip and did her Senior Project on her trip. She got to work in the dental clinic and the dentist taught her to give a lidocaine injection and pull teeth.

[elijahvegas, ASN, RN, EMT-P]

I am betting, Spideys, you did not watch the series, ( 7 seasons) because if you did, you would see Jackie was a complex and very decent as well as imperfect character. I could not write her off as bad or "sociopathic" but she sure did have her faults and bad points. She was HUMAN however, and I loved her character.

[spoilerS]

i wholeheartedly disagree. Jackie was flawed yes, but definitely to the point of sociopathic. I actually have watched the entire series, although it was some time ago, i think the most abhorrent deed she committed was, when she felt threatened by a fellow addict that threatened to confront her enablers that she wasn't doing well, so jackie decided to convince this woman that they were friends, got her to relapse, and promised that if they both go on one last bender together, they could enroll in a rehab together to get clean. at the last minute when they arrived at the clinic, nurse jackie lied and said she was admitting her delusional friend for help and pretty much left her on ice at the clinic alone.

This act in my opinion went beyond just all of the other things that she had done, because all of the questionable and unethical things she had done in the past were mostly self-destructive, and in the name of scoring more drugs. At this point in the series she actually sought to destroy someone else that crossed her (who actually was trying to help).

Not to deter from the main focus of the OP's question, but i personally felt like that was worth pointing out. Jackie, like so many, became overrun by her severe addiction, but in my opinion it made her just a terrible person in every aspect of her life thereafter. Many people stuck their necks out for her, and she took advantage of each and every single one of them, got a couple people fired or near-fired, almost got her fiance arrested, and the only time she would even seem remotely remorseful, was when she was cornered and confronted head on. That lack of remorse which was direct result of her actions, to me is what signals sociopathic tendencies.

[amzyRN]

I really enjoyed the show and thought it's portrayal of drug abuse was spot on. I do firmly believe it is a disease. My own father was an alcoholic who would change into a different person (a very mean and violent person) when he would drink and could not stop until it killed him. I think drug addiction is a very terrible disease that should be approached with as much compassion as possible.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

[spoilerS]

i wholeheartedly disagree. Jackie was flawed yes, but definitely to the point of sociopathic. I actually have watched the entire series, although it was some time ago, i think the most abhorrent deed she committed was, when she felt threatened by a fellow addict that threatened to confront her enablers that she wasn't doing well, so jackie decided to convince this woman that they were friends, got her to relapse, and promised that if they both go on one last bender together, they could enroll in a rehab together to get clean. at the last minute when they arrived at the clinic, nurse jackie lied and said she was admitting her delusional friend for help and pretty much left her on ice at the clinic alone.

This act in my opinion went beyond just all of the other things that she had done, because all of the questionable and unethical things she had done in the past were mostly self-destructive, and in the name of scoring more drugs. At this point in the series she actually sought to destroy someone else that crossed her (who actually was trying to help).

Not to deter from the main focus of the OP's question, but i personally felt like that was worth pointing out. Jackie, like so many, became overrun by her severe addiction, but in my opinion it made her just a terrible person in every aspect of her life thereafter. Many people stuck their necks out for her, and she took advantage of each and every single one of them, got a couple people fired or near-fired, almost got her fiance arrested, and the only time she would even seem remotely remorseful, was when she was cornered and confronted head on. That lack of remorse which was direct result of her actions, to me is what signals sociopathic tendencies.

Wow. Glad I didn't continue with the series. That makes me ill.

[elijahvegas, ASN, RN, EMT-P]

Wow. Glad I didn't continue with the series. That makes me ill.

Oh trust me, the things she does throughout the later parts of the series made me cringe. But I guess that means it was a success as a drama haha. At first it was amusing to see how devious and cunning she was but after a while I really wanted to see her just go down hard

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

Can't I be Carol or Haleh from ER? :)

Carol and Abbey are my favorites!!!!!!!!

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

I found myself yelling out loud at Jackie to not put another pill in her mouth. Some of the stuff she did to pts she didn't like was horrible - yanking out a foley with the balloon still inflated, for instance. She falsified documents so she could push her personal agenda that organ donation was good. She worked all the time, messed up her dtrs and marriage, was not trustworthy, had an addiction with a capital A. Pitiful state of affairs. Great show.

Zoey got on my nerves at first, but became quite mature and strong through the seasons.

Gloria Akalitus was a B at first, then mellowed somewhat.

I hope Eddie didn't go to prison and I hope Grace and Fi turned out OK, Dr. Prince, too, Thor and his new husband, Dr. O'Hara, all the gang.

[Davey Do]

.....

[BSN-to-MSN, ADN, BSN, RN]

Neither, they both pissed me off for different reasons. I'm more like nurse Gloria Akalitus, and I loved Thor in the show, too. The best scene was when Jackie traveled to the airport with the back seat full of drugs, and those flying in slow-mo. The best.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

I'm Jackie's bluntness, that is it.

IMHO, Nurse Jackie, the show is a almost good interpretation of a hospital...there are incidents that I can recall in the past of how fellow nurses have treated pts-not in the extreme of Jackie-of ill repute and no one was willing to report, or even so, was supportive of the nurse actions.

I have also known nurses who have witnessed sleeping around or affairs amongst staff; I have worked alongside nurses who have diverted and the aftermath of such actions.

Nurse Zoey to me, shows a contrast of that idealized nurse who is willing to uphold some of those ideals of what a nurse "should" be, although she has done questionable practices; she photographed that bike messengers' injury-can I say HIPAA?-as well as a eager to please in the beginning, but normalizing as time goes on.

(I'm re watching the show in different eye, so bear with me.)

I think Nurse Jackie was a very refreshing show in terms of how nurses are faced with some of our own fallacies, how are knowledge can be overlooked along with our own trial and errors. I don't think the show is as over the top as some may claim; my own two eyes have experienced such events in my career, people would think it was fiction, but I can assure you otherwise.

I think Nurse Jackie gave a more human face to the image of the "angel of mercy" stereotype that is perpetuated, and showed that nurses are human too...most of us have an inner combination of all those nurses on the show, and use those aspects of each of their nursing personalities when we see fit.

[HopefulRN7]

Your comment got me looking at people's stethoscope around their necks. Is it diaphragm facing in or out?

I'm 99.5% sure it doesn't matter how it sits around your neck. Could depend on which hand you're dominant with and how you take it off. You're not auscultating sounds with it unless it's in your ears (well- at least, I hope)

[Farawyn]

Nurse Colleen McMurphy, anyone?