I was just wondering what other nurses' thoughts are on the show, "Grey's Anatomy". I have been following the show for a while (who can resist Patrick Dempsey?? :) and I have to say, it seems to me that the show portrays nurses in a derogatory way a lot of the time.
For example, every time a doctor or intern needs something, they yell "Nurse!" and then the nurse comes and is ordered to do something. I have never seen them addressed by their name. Or last week, an intern yelled at a nurse like she was a child because his patient had been discharged without orders, and she responded, "I assumed someone else had taken care of the paperwork. We're short staffed". I thought that was kind of ridiculous. As nurses it is our job to be sure the patient has received any necessary teaching/materials before they go home and paperwork and charting is one of the most important components of our job. That is our responsibility. The show made it look like the nurse didn't even care about the discharged patient, and that just looks unprofessional.
Or last night, the nurses were shown going on strike and at one point they were passing along information to one of the doctors about their patients, such as "so and so never takes their pills, etc.". The doctor acted surprised they were doing this and one nurse responded, "They're our patients too, Geroge." I felt upset after hearing this statement because in nursing school we are taught to be the advocates for our patients. That is our professional responsibility and if anything, I would think it'd be the other way around. Nurses are the ones who spend most of their time with the patients, not the doctors and interns- of course they are OUR patients!! Although the show doesn't depict this at all. On the show doctors are seen spending lots of time with the patients in their rooms, moving beds, bringing food trays, transporting patients, etc. I saw a nurse in a room once, but when the doctor walked in he said "Why don't you go get Mrs. Smith's meds together?" as if she were a child or something. Obviously the show overlooked the fact that managing/distributing meds are solely the nurse's responsiblity, not the doctor's.
Finally, on the show there was a syphilis outbreak and of course, the nurse was the one who gave it to one of the interns. She got it from one of the other doctors.
I am not trying to put down the show- it's a good show- but I think that the writers need to take more responsibility for the way they portray the profession of nursing, especially considering what a shortage we have right now. Who will want to go into nursing if they see them portrayed that way? And even if they still are interested, we go through too much during nursing school and work too hard to be brushed off as the doctors' slutty handmaidens with STD's. Am I the only one who feels this way?
Specializes in CCU, Trauma and forensic, Home Hospice C.
I love both House and Greys' but they are rather derogatory in attitudes towards nurses.To watch them at times you would think nurses didn't exist. ER is the only current show that show nurses in a positive lihght( at least at work), and even that show had Abby become a Dr. It is all fiction though and the real public perception of nurses is a lot better than docs.especially in the trust dept. We still rock!:)
I don't watch this show, but... did anyone point out that before health care workers can strike there is a federal law which requires a 10 day notice? And that hospitals either shut down most of the beds, ship people out and stop scheduling surgeries, OR hire a bunch of traveling/agency scabs?
I've been on strike, yes I cared about my patients, but the point is THERE WERE ONLY 8 TO 10 PEOPLE LEFT IN THERE! Nurses do not just walk out on people! :angryfire
i remember last week they did give a number of days notice. its just the show is a weekly show. i love the show. its not focused around nurses thats not the point of the show.
I love the show, but they do need to portray the nurses in a more accurate way. ER wasn't the greatest, but it was much better than Grey's. I also enjoy the show 'House', but they seem to ignore nurses completely. The doctors do all of the bedside care! Now really....
don't you love how on grey that the 4 docs are specialty surgeons in many areas! but i still love the show. i'm surprised izzy was a swimsuit model. she might have had some stretch marks having that baby. another nonreality. is the head doc who is having the baby really pregnant.
don't you love how on grey that the 4 docs are specialty surgeons in many areas! but i still love the show. i'm surprised izzy was a swimsuit model. she might have had some stretch marks having that baby. another nonreality. is the head doc who is having the baby really pregnant.
are you kidding? do you know how many beautiful famous mommies are out there right now doing that job?! it isn't unrealistic.
brook burke, pamela lee, to name a couple. there are many famous MILF's :chuckle
but, what baby are you talking about anyway? I missed last nights show, but don't recall Izzy saying anything ever about a baby???
You can't miss an episode with this show:) The show you missed she cared for a young pregnant girl and told her about her child and that she had given her up for adoption. She had a pic of the child when she was 6 and the child is now 11.
are you kidding? do you know how many beautiful famous mommies are out there right now doing that job?! it isn't unrealistic.
brook burke, pamela lee, to name a couple. there are many famous MILF's :chuckle
but, what baby are you talking about anyway? I missed last nights show, but don't recall Izzy saying anything ever about a baby???
As a nursing student I was OUTRAGED at how they portrayed the student!!!! I like the whole "I dunno...I'm kind of a student..." with that bimbo attitude and "duh" look. And then when Grey saved a DNR patient, she said "Awesome". I was sooooooooo pissed off at that! Speaking on behalf of all nursing students, that was a totally false way to portray them.
I am just as exited as that nursing student when I see something I did not see before. I mean in clinicals we are begging the nurses to let us put a NG tube in instead of them, or give all the shots on that unit. So I know why that student was feeling that way. And if you remember in the first episode of the show, when the doctors just started as interns, they were fighting about the patient who needed sutures, or about one who was shot. They acted just as goofy and exited. I am not ashamed to say, that I am that nursing student who is very exited when I get to see new things and thankfull for those oppertunities.
I love the show. I am recording it every week because I don't want to miss anything.
don't you love how on grey that the 4 docs are specialty surgeons in many areas! but i still love the show. i'm surprised izzy was a swimsuit model. she might have had some stretch marks having that baby. another nonreality. is the head doc who is having the baby really pregnant.
Gotta disagree with the stretchmarks issue - my sister had her first kid at 36 and has no stretchmarks - AT ALL. When she went back to the same hospital eighteen months later to have her second daughter, the OB who was on call that night (and had, oddly enough, been there when her first daughter was born - she also happens to be at the same practice as Joan's OB) said - "Oh, I remember you - you're the lady with no stretch marks!"
She STILL didn't get any after Mary was born. So it IS possible. (I constantly remind her, though, that that doesn't make her cool...)
I think that the Nazi really is pregnant - she disappeared pretty quick.
I love this show - but I was REALLY ticked by the nursing student. Her reaction (that "WHOA!" look on her face) would have been understandable - but she should have kept her mouth shut. I did like the way that Meredith corrected the tube she was handed; I thought that was a nice way of doing it (she didn't bark at her and was very calm), almost as though she was taking into account that the student may have NEVER seen an intubation and was a bit weirded out by the experience. At least they had the student get the correct equipment to start with - I was worried about that!
And George is such a babe! I'd marry him in a minute. You just get the impression he's going to be a great doctor - like he'd be the guy donating his time to help out someone who needed an operation they couldn't afford, or would do something for kids.
I did like that they showed the nurses being so concerned about the patients upstairs - and I think that Olivia's "they're our patients too, George" was highly appropriate - because they ARE, as we all know. I wondered if Shonda Rhimes had had enough of the bad press from various sources.....
And they did mention the strike on the previous show - of course, like someone else said, you have to take into account that TV moves in a different time than we do!
The creator of Grey's Anatomy is Shonda Rhimes, an African American woman. She intends the show to be a feminist approach to the medical field and also prides herself on promoting diversity. Ironically enough in an interview on News and Notes with Ed Gordon on NPR (March 25, 2005) she talks about trying to dispel stereotypes when it comes to minorities on television, saying "the way people look at people on television is the way they perceive the world. And for me the idea of the show, part of it, is that we can change the assumptions that people have simply by the images they see in the background of the show." However, she completely forgets to dispel the nursing stereotype from the show. In fact many articles on the Center for Nursing Advocacy cite examples of reverse misogyny. The female residents seemed to be so intent on asserting themselves as female physicians that they often put down the nurses and their profession. In one episode one of the female residents stands up for her fellow doctors by saying "You're the pig who called Meredith a nurse...I hate you on principle," and demands that the offender treat her with the respect that a doctor deserves (Center for Nursing Advocacy, 2005, April 5). This is deeply disturbing because it is a destructive and elitist form of feminism. A reviewer labels the new paradigm expressed on the show as "dress for success" feminism and explains that it is "an expression of contempt for a traditionally female profession by bright, ambitious women who think they have left all that lowly "women's work" behind in pursuing high-status," (Center for Nursing Advocacy, 2005, April 5). Instead of uniting and encouraging all women, Grey's Anatomy seems to encourage the distinct hierarchy of the medical field. This new feminist approach portrayed on television is only successful by disparaging another whole set of women.
The creator of Grey's Anatomy is Shonda Rhimes, an African American woman. She intends the show to be a feminist approach to the medical field and also prides herself on promoting diversity. Ironically enough in an interview on News and Notes with Ed Gordon on NPR (March 25, 2005) she talks about trying to dispel stereotypes when it comes to minorities on television, saying "the way people look at people on television is the way they perceive the world. And for me the idea of the show, part of it, is that we can change the assumptions that people have simply by the images they see in the background of the show." However, she completely forgets to dispel the nursing stereotype from the show. In fact many articles on the Center for Nursing Advocacy cite examples of reverse misogyny. The female residents seemed to be so intent on asserting themselves as female physicians that they often put down the nurses and their profession. In one episode one of the female residents stands up for her fellow doctors by saying "You're the pig who called Meredith a nurse...I hate you on principle," and demands that the offender treat her with the respect that a doctor deserves (Center for Nursing Advocacy, 2005, April 5). This is deeply disturbing because it is a destructive and elitist form of feminism. A reviewer labels the new paradigm expressed on the show as "dress for success" feminism and explains that it is "an expression of contempt for a traditionally female profession by bright, ambitious women who think they have left all that lowly "women's work" behind in pursuing high-status," (Center for Nursing Advocacy, 2005, April 5). Instead of uniting and encouraging all women, Grey's Anatomy seems to encourage the distinct hierarchy of the medical field. This new feminist approach portrayed on television is only successful by disparaging another whole set of women.
All of this publicity is WHY I think they did the story about nurses striking. The last two shows have focused on the importance of nursing.
Funny how people can see things so differently.
And by the way, lots of loving women give their child up for adoption when they are in the situation portrayed by Izzie and by the young black patient. There is something HEROIC about doing that.
I like the whole "I dunno...I'm kind of a student..." with that bimbo attitude and "duh" look. And then when Grey saved a DNR patient, she said "Awesome". I was sooooooooo pissed off at that! Speaking on behalf of all nursing students, that was a totally false way to portray them. .thumb.gif.09f7460d3e1ff8d6732564d77b5465cb.gif){kind=avatar}
(I constantly remind her, though, that that doesn't make her cool...)
really is pregnant - she disappeared pretty quick. 
CarVsTree
1,078 Posts
If doctors' jobs are so EXCITING, how come they ALWAYS portray doctors doing a nurses job? :rotfl: