Center For Nursing Advocacy steamed over Kelly Ripa sponge bath nursey comments

Nurses Activism

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
There is not just one way to solve the nursing shortage. When nursing is so undervalued in the public consciousness, nurses can't get the resources they need to do their work. For instance, it sounds like you need a secretary to do a lot of your paperwork. If your work was valued in line with its worth, maybe you would be able to convince hospital executives to give you one. But instead, you mock the people who are trying to improve your status in the world. Talk about a self-loathing nurse.

Nurses themselves need to work on issues they see before them. I hope you are working on the paperwork issue that plagues you. Because if nurses aren't going to try to solve the problems we face, they likely won't get solved. And our patients ultimately suffer.

Thank you for providing another reason of why Nursing Advocacy will never ever speak for me (the other reason being that i'm not an RN). :stone

Currently, I am involved in a "nursing reinvention" team in our unit.

Good, I'm glad that you are working on the issues that drag down your ability to provide quality patient care. More nurses need to do this.

I'm sorry if I offended you, of course your work won't hurt. But, I am quite positive the center for nurse advocacy had nothing to do with the progress we've made in our unit.

But none of us operates in a vacuum. There is no one solution to the nursing shortage and no one person who fixes it. We all must work in our own corners of the world to improve the situation. We have had success in removing many negative stereotypical depictions of nurses and convinced others to improve their portrayals. Had those in positions of power at your institution been bombarded with the negative images that we have gotten removed, perhaps they would have further undervalued your work and not given you the ability to participate in decision-making. I think it's impossible to know exactly how the Center has affected you and how it hasn't. I'm not sure why it's so important to you to dismiss the value of our work.

Sandy

Trash pure and simple, that is why I never watch the show. What if all the nurses boycott the program. If we are at home don't watch it, if we are at work make sure none of the television are turned to that station maybe they would hear us then.

One could also argue that the work of nurses is so intimate that it will always be subject to some level of sexual fantasy. But the jobs of others that are now subject to this kind of stereotyping (such as flight attendants) do not involve intimate contact. Instead, the common theme seems to be that they are traditionally female jobs that are seen--we said seen--to involve simple personal service. On the other hand, traditionally male professions that may involve intimate contact and/or personal service do not seem to suffer in the same way. People may imagine physicians sexually, but they are not generally presented with revealing images of physicians as silly and available. On the contrary, physicians are often seen as perhaps the ultimate marital prize, and it is hard to imagine the profession suffering from this kind of image in terms of recruiting, retention, or resources.

At ground level, the devaluation of nursing translates into an underpowered profession that may not be strong enough to save your life when you need it to do so. The "naughty nurse" isn't going to catch deadly medication errors, intervene when a patient is about to crash, or teach a patient to survive with a life-threatening condition. It's time for her to change into something a little more comfortable.

best regards,

What an excellent commentary. I, for one, am so glad the Center for Nursing Advocacy exists and can't wait to get on board. Especially from a public health perspective, social marketing is a powerful machine and what the public sees so often becomes what they believe. It's not a trivial thing. If Kelly Ripa had decided to portray an African-American as a clownish bimbo, perpetuating that pre-civil rights stereotype, the NAACP would have something to say about it. It is important for us to protect how our profession is portrayed to the public if we ever want to move forward.

As someone else brought up the stereotypes in other professions, such as cops and donuts, I think nursing is different. While we have that portrayal we also have the balance of "cop shows", accurate books about police officers, the respectable image of a police officer, and I would say most of us know what police officers do. The general public has not been exposed to what nurses really do. Maybe we rank high on ethics and trust, but most ambitious teens would rather be a physician ("the hero", "the leader")than "someone who follows orders." With nursing, the stereotypes are winning out. I doubt potential police officer recruits are deterred by the "cops and donuts" imagery in the media. Are potential nursing recruits deterred by nursing stereotypes in the media? I would say, absolutely. If you've got any brains as a woman (or a man!), you're not too keen on entering a profession portrayed the way nursing has been portrayed. I've had to educate my own family about what I do.

Maybe it's because I'm getting my MPH at the moment, but I see the validity of all she talked about. Hopefully the pressure will let them know somebody is paying attention.

~ VivaRN

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