Does media acknowledge psych nurses?

[shaylaselma]

Hello everyone!

I am a third year psychiatric nursing student in Vancouver, Canada. I have a school project to do that I am working on with my classmates. The topic we were given was 'The Psychiatric Nursing Role". We are supposed to select a specific topic related to our role and my group decided to pick vicarious trauma and burnout.

When we split up the work, I decided to take on the media aspect of it. Meaning, I will share to my class the role of media in psychiatric nursing. I wanted to invite you all to share any thoughts, articles, links or opinions on this matter.

Do you feel the media actively educates the world on our side of things or events that we have witnessed? Do you feel the stress or trauma we go through is often ignored by the news or media?Do you feel we are blamed for things? Do you ever feel media belittles our role or gives the public the wrong idea through television shows? (grey's anatomy, etc).

I have spoken to a a group of individuals who do not work in healthcare and when I explained the aspect of vicarious trauma, they seemed rather surprised that they hadn't ever considered how these events affect us. Therefore, it lead me to here. I would love your thoughts on this. Or if anyone has any media links for or against what I have posted that would be great!

[vintagemother, BSN, CNA, LVN, RN]

I think the general public knows very little accurate information about mental illness. And I think the media (at least in the US) perpetuates this.

[RatchedAfterMidnight, MSN, APRN]

The public's perception of psychiatry is based on media such as Nurse Jackie and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. People do not know what we do, sometimes including other nurses.

[Bpop12]

Media seems to always focus on staffing and public safety

if there isn't enough psychiatrist input they raise their salary to attack more providers. Not so much as what nurses do to help educate the public