Survey: Do you think nurses are portrayed positively in the media?

Chewie_123 · May 29, 2009

Overall I would say no.

I did get to watch and episode of House the other day, and did notice there were a lot more nurses running around during codes and such than in the first season...

2BSure · May 29, 2009

Look, even my family didn't "get" that nurses weren't handmaidens until I spent 4 weeks in a hospital. My brother was all "OMG I can't believe how well educated and responsive your nurses were in ICU." He took great pains to tell me all about how well my sistas (sorry there were only women apparently) looked after me...and them.

For my brother that was unreal because all he used to say about nurses was..."If you can't get a date, get a nurse". And no I am NOT kidding.

Of course until I was in hospital none of my family, except me, had spent any time in a hospital.

Now my family runs around telling everyone tat I am a nurse and ooooh aaaaaah isn't she marvelous etc etc! It is really cute.

melz34 · May 31, 2009

Nurses are portrayed positively in The Tv Medical drama Holby City but the doctors are always shouting at them and telling them that they are useless and sometimes the top docs pick on junior doctors on this tv program if you have been watching holby city the last few years you will realise that Ric Griffin likes to always pick at the senior house officer Maddy and the two other nurse Maria and Donna but when he gets shouted at back like Maria did in last weeks episode he hated it and now Maddy is dead he dosn't even care probably so the media don't portray nice doctors they portray nasty mean doctors and plus the lazy and snappy nurse Donna is saying that nurses are useless and not all are

Moogie · May 31, 2009

I think that, like many difficult problems, there is a matrix of causes and conditions that lead to nurses’ collective lack of self-defense in the hospital hierarchy.
Lingering feminine subservience, reinforced by the conservative nature of the demographic “helping” profession, which attracts enablers from dysfunctional families, who tend to reinforce the status-quo “victim” role
Tendency for women and other disenfranchised groups to engage in horizontal hostility, which short-circuits attempts at organization.
Poor comprehension on part of the public as to what nurses do.
I think one of the important questions to ask is not so much “Why can’t nurses defend their rights”, as it is, “Why won’t nurses defend their rights?”.
Please don’t get me wrong; I am very pro-woman and very, very pro-nurse, but nursing culture is totally whack. You are entirely correct; abusers will abuse until someone stops them, and the someone has to be us..

Your points are well-taken, especially what you said about horizontal hostility. Could it be that the culture of health care is such that we're encouraged to attack each other rather than unite? Maybe, on some level, the powers that be would rather we waste our energy fighting with each other rather than working together to really change things.

We nurses have more power than we think. Good post, Rabbitgirrl.