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.

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

Unfortunately, my admitted bias is against drug addicts. First day of nursing school, our instructor asked us to go home that afternoon and think about what our biases might be and then come back the next day to share. When we all had our turn talking, the instructor said that the exercise was to make us realize our biases so we never ever let it/them hinder our care of patients.

So, I don't let it hinder my care of patients.

My multitude of experiences with people who chose drugs over their families has made me unsympathetic to drug addicts. This includes my own family. I've had to report many so-called parents who smoked meth in front of their young children, whose home was littered with filth, whose children were hurt due to lack of care.

If Jackie is so smart and compassionate, she needed to go into rehab. For the sake of her children. Or leave her husband and children behind and never come back until she was well.

I didn't watch all of the shows. The first season soured me on the show.

Again, I'm not complaining about showing nursing in a bad light.

I just don't like it when drug addicts chose drugs over their kids. That's child abuse.

I'm not a fan of child abuse.

(SBE and I are friends ya'll - so no worries).

Hey there,

You know I used to feel the same way about drug addicts until I became one. It just sort of snuck up on me and whammo there I was with a needle in my hand. Fortunately I got caught and turned it around before it was too late for me but I have learned a new compassion for those who suffer from this spiritual as well as physical malady called addiction. I used to also feel the same way about the LGBT population with regards to HIV/AIDS but I learned to have compassion for those who suffer from that horrible disease as well (not LGBT but HIV/AIDS). My dad who was part Cherokee and a drunk I might add used to say don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.

Peace and Namaste

Hppy

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

Hey there,

You know I used to feel the same way about drug addicts until I became one. It just sort of snuck up on me and whammo there I was with a needle in my hand. Fortunately I got caught and turned it around before it was too late for me but I have learned a new compassion for those who suffer from this spiritual as well as physical malady called addiction. I used to also feel the same way about the LGBT population with regards to HIV/AIDS but I learned to have compassion for those who suffer from that horrible disease as well (not LGBT but HIV/AIDS). My dad who was part Cherokee and a drunk I might add used to say don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.

Peace and Namaste

Hppy

I've very glad you turned it around.

However, I don't have to be a drug addict (walk a mile in someone's moccasins) to understand drug or alcohol addiction and make a judgment about it.

And when someone does something over and over and people keep getting hurt, it is unhealthy to stay in that relationship.

You have to make a judgment. And many times walk away from destructive family members or friends.

It is not as easy as walking in someone's shoes.

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

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

But Abby cheated on Goran Visijinic! WHO CHEATS ON THAT MAN???

Plus she went to the dark side and got her MD.

[luannbrodigan]

Perfect timing--I also binge watched it over the past 2 months. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I wanted Jackie to recover. I had to keep watching to see if she could make it. But it IS fiction. ER nurses don't talk to ER Docs like that, or we wouldn't keep our jobs! We might perform out of our scope at times, but very infrequently. ER is a safe place for nurses--it's one of the only settings where the doctor or provider is always with you. I have worked along side an impaired nurse, and it ain't funny. Never. Not at all. I watched a person's excellent performance steadily deteriorate. She lied to me constantly. I wanted to believe the stories and excuses, and I talked myself into it. At the end, when another nurse caught her in the act of ingesting diverted narcotics, I felt so angry--I was a fool to believe all those junkie excuses. I still have anger towards that nurse and this has been 19 years ago. Nurse Jackie is a fictional account of a narcotic addict who at times is functional, but I like the lesson--in the end, she lost it all. Still made me sad that she couldn't recover.

[JVerne07]

Oh god! I recently watched this show and I relate to Zoey so much in that as a student/new nurse you feel like a total goober who is just trying to stay positive, make friends, and make the best out of the situation you're thrown into. Like, I know I we come across as corny, terrified, green little things, but MAN don't you remember meeting some of those battleaxe veteran nurses and being like PLEEEEASE LIKE ME, I JUST WANT TO BE GOOD AT MY JOB!

[Purple_roses]

The only one I've watched is Nurse Jackie (actually I'm only a few episodes in). So far what I like most about it is that it's the only show I've seen so far that has portrayed nurses as intelligent, strong, hard-working individuals. They don't say "yes Doctor" and the doctors listen to the nurses (for the most part). Granted, it's not smart to do drugs, but hey, she's human.

[Get2theChoppa]

I watched the American version of getting on, and I was actually mortified. Keep me away from any facility that even remotely resembles this

Ah that's what made it great. LOL.

[lmgst30]

Off-topic, but it bothers me THAT MUCH... but the number of people Eddie lets into the pharmacy really bothers me. Shouldn't the door be locked? And Antoinette! Not even a hospital employee!

I know it's TV but I can only suspend my disbelief so far.

[SwansonRN]

I adore this show. My mom always calls me nurse Zoey, but I like to think of myself as later years Zoey when she's charge nurse!

[ChristiRN]

I have been literally and figuratively Nurse Jackie. It took me years to watch the show but when i did I was hooked. The ending still haunts me. I strive now to be Zoey.

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

But Abby cheated on Goran Visijinic! WHO CHEATS ON THAT MAN???

Plus she went to the dark side and got her MD.

But then she went back to nursing! There was a good episode when she explained why she chooses to be a nurse, rather than a doctor, to Goran.

Yes that man is fiiiiiiiiine!!!!!!!![emoji57]

[eieiyo]

I too recently binge watched nurse jackie. I was mesmerized by her, sorta looked up to her. On the surface she is a great nurse, her co workers do not know about the drugs. But as the show goes on, she becomes a different person. We see her spiraling out of control and want to help her. But Watching her go thru rehab and withdrawals only to end the show by popping more pills with a smirk on her face?

I am definitely a combination of both nurses. I am tough, a great nurse who leads others. But I am also trusting and a bit naive at times. Like Jackie I like to lighten the mood at work when appropriate. But even with bad osteoarthritis I would never take pills like she did.