Oh my god! I haven't posted in a long time, but I just had to post again. I'm watching the premier of Grey's Anatomy -- any of you see this?? (new show on ABC)
The Doctor, after being questioned by a nurse says, "I'm just a resident, but you take 4 years of medical school, and let me know if I'm right." (Did I quote it right?)
Then, as he walks away he says, "I hate nurses."
Then, he walks up to a female resident and mistakenly calls her a nurse and she responds, with anger and indignation, "Did you just call me a nurse?" As though it were a racial slur!
I mean, nurses have historically been marginalized in many mass media outlets, but this is amazing!!
OK. I read this entire thread to make sure this hasn't been covered already. If you want to be a physician, why do you feel you need to go to nursing school? It would seem to me that that would be a lot of wasted time and expense. But, then again, I don't know, I'm not standing in your shoes . I just had to ask.
Instead of going to pre med or getting a degree in something totally unrelated to medicine...nursing is the way to go. Not only can you work while you're in med school....you gain valuable insight into both sides of the field..nsg and medicine. You need some kind of degree...nursing is it for me! Of course I'm in nursing right now but I'm leaving the door open.
I know you werent asking me directly but I thought I'd answer anyways. Maybe Dorris has other reasons? :)
Instead of going to pre med or getting a degree in something totally unrelated to medicine...nursing is the way to go. Not only can you work while you're in med school....you gain valuable insight into both sides of the field..nsg and medicine. You need some kind of degree...nursing is it for me! Of course I'm in nursing right now but I'm leaving the door open.
I know you werent asking me directly but I thought I'd answer anyways. Maybe Dorris has other reasons? :)
Z
But, won't you still have to complete a premed curriculum to get into medical school, even if you have a bsn?
But, won't you still have to complete a premed curriculum to get into medical school, even if you have a bsn?
No pre med needed here or available here. No MCAT needed either. You can apply in your 3rd year from law school if you want (as long as it's a BSN program) and get accepted. Of course you will need to have the pre reqs from high school already and you need astronomically good grades. The whole idea behind this move by our University is to get a wide variety of doctors with a broader view than just the stick in the mud medical aspect. They welcome older students who've been out of school and bartending for 15 years before returning to school. More to life than medicine when going into medicine here lemme tell ya. :)
No pre med needed here or available here. No MCAT needed either. You can apply in your 3rd year from law school if you want and get accepted. Of course you will need to have the pre reqs from high school already and you need astronomically good grades. The whole idea behind this move by our University is to get a wide variety of doctors with a broader view than just the stick in the mud medical aspect. They welcome older students who've been out of school and bartending for 15 years before returning to school. More to life than medicine when going into medicine here lemme tell ya. :)
Z
Well in that case, the bsn probably is the best way to go. At least it's in the same universe. Law school? wow!
Our nation's law enforcement community is often referred to as the "thin blue line" that stands between us and those who would do us harm. The metaphor was coined more than a half-century ago by Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker and came from the "thin red line" depiction used by a journalist to describe British infantrymen during the Crimean War.
Today, it would be appropriate to recast and attribute this phrase to America's nurses, who are on the front line in the battle for patient safety. This "thin white line," if you will, labors in long shifts under challenging working conditions for inadequate compensation to heal the sick.
So it is disturbing to turn on the television and find the latest "I hate nurses" drama Hollywood has to offer, this time under the heading of Grey's Anatomy. This new ABC entry does a serious disservice to the men and women who make up this honorable profession. Grey's Anatomy is exactly the program you would concoct if you married E.R. with Sex and the City and topped it off with what seems to be some poorly researched writing.
Those who would shrug off the program as "just another television show" should consider the impact of this kind of attitude on a profession already suffering a shortage of workers.
In her book Code Green, Harvard writer Dana Beth Weinberg describes the scope of this crisis and its implications for all of us who might at one time be a patient and require nurses' care. Weinberg describes how two Boston hospitals responded to severe market pressures in the 1990s by sacrificing quality nursing care and patient well-being on the altar of cost cutting. It's scary stuff and a must-read for Hollywood producers.
Though nurses do occasionally appear, the show is really a series of intense interactions among its nine physician characters. In the first episode, no nurse is ever even named! Only surgeons play significant roles in care discussions, and only their actions affect patient care. The nurses provide no patient support.
Now let's talk about real life:
In a real hospital, nurses provide invaluable education to interns, often proposing care options and catching potential medical errors that are too common in America's health-care system.
In a real medical setting, nurses play as large a role in health care as do physicians (and physicians value and trust their role and professional judgment). In the real world, nurses are not peripheral; they are on the front lines and critical to patient safety and care. In a real medical emergency, nurses take action and save lives.
To me, one of the most distressing characterizations in the first episode was when a physician criticizes a nurse (unnamed, of course) for completely appropriate advocacy for her patient. This is a critical nursing function. The nurse character is merely a tired plot device. In another segment, an intern is called incompetent and, as an insult, referred to as a nurse. "Did you call me a nurse?" the offended intern asks. "If the white hat fits..." is her supervisor's retort.
This not-even-subtle depiction ought to bother all of us who work day in and day out to improve medical quality. It is time for us to speak up.
America's nurses are front-line warriors in the battle to ensure patient safety and health-care quality. At a time when our nation confronts a nursing shortage, one has to wonder what impact shows like Grey's Anatomy will have on the choice of nursing as a profession and ultimately on the state of the public's health.
I hope that ABC has already heard from many of the thousands of nurses justifiably outraged by the program. We can only hope that the producers will make appropriate adjustments. I already have: I clicked the "off" button.
David L. Knowlton, former deputy commissioner of the state Department of Health and Senior Services, is president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute.
I enjoy the show and take offense to anyone telling me how I should or should not feel about a television show. I also don't think nurses are the ones to ask if the show is accurate to the world of interns as we are not interns and don't live in that world. I am an intelligent, honest, ethical, hardworking, compassionate and respected nurse. I am perfectly capable of making my own television viewing choices without concerning myself with whether or not someone else thinks I should enjoy it or not. I do not think that all television determines the future for our profession or any other for that matter.
What I do think would be a good idea is a show about nurses. Has anyone who is so angry taken the time to think through and draw up a script for a nursing program and then submitted it to one of the networks. After all this board alone is what 75,000 strong. To me it makes more sense to pitch something like this to a network while pointing out to them that there are far more nurses than there are doctors. If there were a quality interesting show about nurses to watch there wouldn't need to be such commotion over a show about interns. Just a thought
"I enjoy the show and take offense to anyone telling me how I should or should not feel about a television show. I also don't think nurses are the ones to ask if the show is accurate to the world of interns as we are not interns and don't live in that world"
First, I don't know that anyone is telling you how you should feel. Second, it's not that the show is inaccurate towards interns, but medicine in general. Although I think there was an intern on here saying it was inaccurate towards interns.
My major problem with the "it's just a show" line is that people only buy it because of the low-status that nurses already have. If they made a show about a white family who employed all black servants and the servants were constantly getting into trouble with the law and eating fried chicken every night would you endorse it as, "hey it's just a TV show; it's just entertainment." I think not. But it's okay display nurses in a stereotypical derogatory way? You can feel how you want, but I just thought I'd put it in some perspective.
Our nation's law enforcement community is often referred to as the "thin blue line" that stands between us and those who would do us harm. The metaphor was coined more than a half-century ago by Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker and came from the "thin red line" depiction used by a journalist to describe British infantrymen during the Crimean War.
Today, it would be appropriate to recast and attribute this phrase to America's nurses, who are on the front line in the battle for patient safety. This "thin white line," if you will, labors in long shifts under challenging working conditions for inadequate compensation to heal the sick.
So it is disturbing to turn on the television and find the latest "I hate nurses" drama Hollywood has to offer, this time under the heading of Grey's Anatomy. This new ABC entry does a serious disservice to the men and women who make up this honorable profession. Grey's Anatomy is exactly the program you would concoct if you married E.R. with Sex and the City and topped it off with what seems to be some poorly researched writing.
Those who would shrug off the program as "just another television show" should consider the impact of this kind of attitude on a profession already suffering a shortage of workers.
In her book Code Green, Harvard writer Dana Beth Weinberg describes the scope of this crisis and its implications for all of us who might at one time be a patient and require nurses' care. Weinberg describes how two Boston hospitals responded to severe market pressures in the 1990s by sacrificing quality nursing care and patient well-being on the altar of cost cutting. It's scary stuff and a must-read for Hollywood producers.
Though nurses do occasionally appear, the show is really a series of intense interactions among its nine physician characters. In the first episode, no nurse is ever even named! Only surgeons play significant roles in care discussions, and only their actions affect patient care. The nurses provide no patient support.
Now let's talk about real life:
In a real hospital, nurses provide invaluable education to interns, often proposing care options and catching potential medical errors that are too common in America's health-care system.
In a real medical setting, nurses play as large a role in health care as do physicians (and physicians value and trust their role and professional judgment). In the real world, nurses are not peripheral; they are on the front lines and critical to patient safety and care. In a real medical emergency, nurses take action and save lives.
To me, one of the most distressing characterizations in the first episode was when a physician criticizes a nurse (unnamed, of course) for completely appropriate advocacy for her patient. This is a critical nursing function. The nurse character is merely a tired plot device. In another segment, an intern is called incompetent and, as an insult, referred to as a nurse. "Did you call me a nurse?" the offended intern asks. "If the white hat fits..." is her supervisor's retort.
This not-even-subtle depiction ought to bother all of us who work day in and day out to improve medical quality. It is time for us to speak up.
America's nurses are front-line warriors in the battle to ensure patient safety and health-care quality. At a time when our nation confronts a nursing shortage, one has to wonder what impact shows like Grey's Anatomy will have on the choice of nursing as a profession and ultimately on the state of the public's health.
I hope that ABC has already heard from many of the thousands of nurses justifiably outraged by the program. We can only hope that the producers will make appropriate adjustments. I already have: I clicked the "off" button.
David L. Knowlton, former deputy commissioner of the state Department of Health and Senior Services, is president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute.
To me, one of the most distressing characterizations in the first episode was when a physician criticizes a nurse (unnamed, of course) for completely appropriate advocacy for her patient. This is a critical nursing function. The nurse character is merely a tired plot device. In another segment, an intern is called incompetent and, as an insult, referred to as a nurse. "Did you call me a nurse?" the offended intern asks. "If the white hat fits..." is her supervisor's retort.
I wonder why nobody seems to be paying attention to the full context of this episode. I finally saw a rerun of this episode last night (since I didn't see the original airing of it).
The intern who says this gets reprimanded by his supervisor and pulled off the case at the end. The nurse who he criticized actually looks good for trying to get him to do his job, which he failed to do ... hence the reprimand.
Also, it's not a supervisor who calls a female intern a nurse and makes the "white hat fits" remark. The remark is actually made by the same jerk intern who's reprimanded at the end of the episode.
So I'm not sure why everybody's so upset about these comments when the character who says these things is made to look like a complete idiot, where they clearly show he was completely wrong with everything he did.
I wonder why nobody seems to be paying attention to the full context of this episode. I finally saw a rerun of this episode last night (since I didn't see the original airing of it).
The intern who says this gets reprimanded by his supervisor and pulled off the case at the end. The nurse who he criticized actually looks good for trying to get him to do his job, which he failed to do ... hence the reprimand.
Also, it's not a supervisor who calls a female intern a nurse and makes the "white hat fits" remark. The remark is actually made by the same jerk intern who's reprimanded at the end of the episode.
So I'm not sure why everybody's so upset about these comments when the character who says these things is made to look like a complete idiot, where they clearly show he was completely wrong with everything he did.
Are you perhaps overreacting?
He's the one character whose name I can never remember - and it's because I think he's a first-class jerk.
I wonder why nobody seems to be paying attention to the full context of this episode. I finally saw a rerun of this episode last night (since I didn't see the original airing of it).
The intern who says this gets reprimanded by his supervisor and pulled off the case at the end. The nurse who he criticized actually looks good for trying to get him to do his job, which he failed to do ... hence the reprimand.
Also, it's not a supervisor who calls a female intern a nurse and makes the "white hat fits" remark. The remark is actually made by the same jerk intern who's reprimanded at the end of the episode.
So I'm not sure why everybody's so upset about these comments when the character who says these things is made to look like a complete idiot, where they clearly show he was completely wrong with everything he did.
Are you perhaps overreacting?
I finally saw the episode too - the nurse was right and the intern was wrong and got upbraided about it in front of lots of people . .
The other thing I noticed is that even with all the letters of complaint and the above article, the scene was NOT changed in the rerun to placate nurse viewers.
Philadelphia Inquirer
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z's playa
2,056 Posts
Instead of going to pre med or getting a degree in something totally unrelated to medicine...nursing is the way to go. Not only can you work while you're in med school....you gain valuable insight into both sides of the field..nsg and medicine. You need some kind of degree...nursing is it for me! Of course I'm in nursing right now but I'm leaving the door open.
I know you werent asking me directly but I thought I'd answer anyways. Maybe Dorris has other reasons? :)
Z