the image of nursing

thisnurse · Oct 20, 2001

i can remember when er first aired. there was another show on called nightengales. there was a tremendous negative response to both of those shows by nurses from all across the country.

nightengales they just wanted taken off, which it was, thank goodness, and er they wanted portrayed in a more realistic light.

generally the nurses did not like the way nurse hathaway was portrayed in the pilot episode and felt that the show should depecit nursing in a more realistic light.

the producers listened to the nurses and hired a group of emergency nurse consultants to look at the scripts.

of course they are going to make the characters more exciting but i dont think they do TOO bad a job, especially compared to some of the other shows.

who remembers that paramedic show EMERGENCY...lol

and lets not forget MEDICAL CENTER...

my all time favorite medical show was st elsewhere.

Mijourney · Oct 24, 2001

Hi. Wash, thanks for the information. I do wonder who specifically was polled. I can tell you that for many of my home health patients and families, they haven't a clue about the different types of nursing education. Some not only can't spell the word, but don't know a comprehensive definition for education. I have to deal with my patients and families according to their understanding of what nursing means to them. For many, the CNA is the nurse, because it's the CNA that actually has the most intimate relationship with the patients in the home in terms of dealing directly with their physical needs. Many of my patients are elderly and a good percentage of them do not have education beyond grade school, so they don't value instruction and teaching on topics like diabetes, CHF, CAD, HTN, etc. on the same level as a good bath and direct attention to comfort measures.

Also, the fact that the nursing profession overall did not see a need to be politically proactive in the past, we have not been able to overcome certain media stereotypes of us such as being too intellectually inept to be a real force when it comes to defining what we we're actually capable of.

Image is everything. I agree that nurses need to become more forceful when it comes to defining our image in the media. My patients, who are all homebound, get most of their information about us that way.

WashYaHands · Oct 25, 2001

I do wonder who specifically was polled.

I thought about that myself. Also, the article states that over 1000 people were polled. That's not very many in the big scheme of things.

Linda