A Look at Nurses in the Media
Here you are looking for information on earning your nurse practitioner degree online, only to stumble across another subject that intensifies your passion for nursing …
Television Stereotypes
From Hot Lips Houlihan on MASH in the 1970’s to the modern Nurse Jackie, nurses are played by women. They are typically the ones who help the male doctors, so they can be the heroes in every episode. It’s 2014 – shouldn’t television catch up with modern times?
We know there are ER nurses who work tireless hours in the inner cities of America, patching up too many kids with gunshot wounds. We have colleagues in Critical Care, who are walking the line between life and death every day. These are the men and women who need to be more precisely – and frequently –portrayed in the media.
Nurses in the News
Although nursing journals have news to report on a regular basis, nurses are pretty much absent from the local and national news. We occasionally hear about nursing when the media speaks to a crisis-level shortage of caregivers for the elderly. The visual is always the same, with a woman in scrubs helping a senior citizen walk down the hall. Elder care is certainly far more complex than this stereotype.
Accuracy in the media would go a long way in helping the general population better understand the many roles that nurses play throughout our communities. The profession can only benefit when we see nurses in action, working to the best of their abilities to save lives and make a difference in the world.
One excellent example of positive news coverage occurred during Hurricane Sandy when a major New York City hospital had to be evacuated. Patients were carried down several flights of stairs by the staff on duty. Nurses found ways to keep neonates alive during transport to another hospital. They helped to salvage medical records and protect sensitive data. Nurses were the heroes that day … just like they are every day, in every other hospital across America.