Jay Leno slams nurses!

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Oct 15, 2005

Leno has done this before!

I remember I was watcing him a couple of years ago, and it was Nurses' Week. He mentioned Nurses' Week, saying "we have to thank all the nurses. Without them, we wouldn't have nearly as many Mediao movies."

What an Azz!

fergus51 · Oct 15, 2005

It doesn't offend me in the least.

mdoze911nurse · Oct 15, 2005

I am not really a Leno fan but it's kind of like cops eating donuts or sailors swabbing decks. I'm a nurse married to a cop who was a sailor for 23 years. We get a lot of jokes. When he was on ships we heard the "girl in every port" bit. Look at the drawings that you see of Leno - they are bound to bite sometimes. I agree that we should pick our battles - let's work on advocacy for having decent patient ratios or some equally important problems that we face every day.

baby&mommynurse · Oct 15, 2005

Personally, I don't really like Jay Leno. I don't think his humor is funny. I didn't hear him say the comment, joke, whatever... but it doesn't offend me either. I'm thinking that most of the public who did hear it, probably laughed then didn't give it a second thought. If it was some other profession that he slammed, any of us probably would've laughed, too. But since it was about nurses, some of us may have took it too personally.

Alas and sadly, those type of comments are all too endemic against nursing. And it won't change.

No matter how much we "advocate" for ourselves, no one is going to know what nursing is truly about unless they are working in our shoes because most people are more concerned with their own selves.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Oct 15, 2005

But think about this. How many times in how many ways do you 'hide in the wings'. You don't say what you know, you hint until the doctor gets what you are saying. You don’t call the doc and say ‘Mrs. Smith is going into CHF and needs some lasix and O2’ – you say ‘Mrs. Smith’s sats are dropping and her lungs sound wet’ etc. etc. until the doc orders the things you knew she needed when you made the call. Then, the perception of both the doc and the public is that – the doc came in to save the day. Even if you tell the family that actions were taken to save Mrs. Smith, it’s normally couched as ‘I called the doc and got some orders’. Wow, her doc really saved the day!
~faith,
Timothy.

I agree that nurses are often silent around doctors.

However, it's a nurses job to assess and report the symptoms, not to diagnose. Saying "his sats are dropping and he's got loud crackles, excessory muscle breathing" is what nurses do rather than "he's in CHF and needs lasix". I was in charge when a nurse called a doc with that "he's wet" and got an order for lasix on a patient who really had pneumonia and was dehydrated.

Anyway, it's not all bad. I remember working in NICU and a nurse took care of a crashing patient. The patient was a 16 year old in a coma who three months later was back in school. The newspaper printed an article about her recovery and the mother said "she almost died, but the nurses saved her", because it was in the middle of the night and not a doctor in sight. My heart smiled then.

But I agree, it's how we act and perform in the real world that is going to make a difference more than anything.

Corvette Guy · Oct 15, 2005

I don't think the point is that nurses can't take a ribbing.
The point is that, in ribbing nurses, Leno plays on an inaccurate stereotype.
It's not the joke itself, but the insight into what that joke says about the media representation of nurses.
Y'all are all low cut dressed bimbos (even though I'm a nurse, I'm a guy - so I guess that means I get a free pass, there. -- oh wait! I must be gay, I forgot.)
~faith,
Timothy.

:yeahthat:

IMHO, seems like this poor in taste of a joke by Leno would bother male nurses the most. I think its these kind of jokes that keep the stereotype of nursing as a female profession alive. Nursing should not be categorized as a gender profession.

- Proud to be a Male RN

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Oct 15, 2005

"If we nurses can't take a little gentle ribbing from such a respected and traditional source, then we have a problem. We need to handle such things with grace, dignity, and good humor. Everybody knew it was a joke: there is no chance that anyone in his right mind took it seriously. We need to not take it too seriously, either."

The thing of it is, this kind of rib poking has been going on for years, while it's meant in humor, that's not how i'll take it. I do not appreciate any jokes linking my career to the adult movie industy, and i'm worth way more than that.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Oct 15, 2005

referred post no longer here.

Corvette Guy · Oct 15, 2005

"If we nurses can't take a little gentle ribbing from such a respected and traditional source, then we have a problem. We need to handle such things with grace, dignity, and good humor. Everybody knew it was a joke: there is no chance that anyone in his right mind took it seriously. We need to not take it too seriously, either."
The thing of it is, this kind of rib poking has been going on for years, while it's meant in humor, that's not how i'll take it. I do not appreciate any jokes linking my career to the adult movie industy, and i'm worth way more than that.

:bow: ... right on!

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Oct 15, 2005

And there's no point in anyone repeating "take a joke" or "get a life" or "get a sense of humor" to me, just because people disagree, which, by the way, is pretty dismissive of others' feelings to say the need a life or a sense of humor for feeling this way about a "joke". I have a wonderful sense of humor, i can take a joke just fine, and i have a fulfilling life, but i refuse to sit by and say nothing, while some supposed comedian makes crass, uncalled for "jokes" about my line of work. I'm not saying every nurse should feel this way, but don't slam the ones that do.

zambezi, BSN, RN · Oct 15, 2005

The joke (which I didn't hear) dosen't really bother me either since it was "just" Jay Leno. He make fun of everyone and everything- that is his job- everytime I have watched Jay Leno (which is never- I don't even think I have seen one show) he is making fun of someone or something and playing on stereotypes- not that that makes it right. It would bother me more if CNN or someone people actually believe/listen to made a comment along those lines. I don't know. The whole nursing in Media thing dosen't really bother me. I know I am not a Media star. The majority of the public knows that nurses aren't Media stars. It is just of one of those weird fantasies the public has derived to make a bad situation (being in the hospital) more tolerable (yes, by exploiting women- which is a another debate...).

Anyway, everyone is entitiled to their own opinion. In my opinion- I do'nt really care about Jay Leno and would rather be annoyed at other issues.

llg, PhD, RN · Oct 15, 2005

"If we nurses can't take a little gentle ribbing from such a respected and traditional source, then we have a problem. We need to handle such things with grace, dignity, and good humor. Everybody knew it was a joke: there is no chance that anyone in his right mind took it seriously. We need to not take it too seriously, either."
The thing of it is, this kind of rib poking has been going on for years, while it's meant in humor, that's not how i'll take it. I do not appreciate any jokes linking my career to the adult movie industy, and i'm worth way more than that.

I can understand and respect your feelings on the issue. Your personal sense of morality is involved. Other people, who protest that sort of joke for primarily political reasons (as opposed to moral reasons) are the people I am disagreeing with. I believe there is a difference.

llg