Open letter #13 to Grey's Anatomy

Dear "Grey's Anatomy" Producers:

I am writing to urge you to improve the poor portrayal of nursing on "Grey's Anatomy."

As you know, the show has roughly ten physician characters but no major nurse characters, even though hospitals exist mainly to provide nursing care. Not only does this undervalue nursing, but many episodes feature a great deal of nursing work performed by the physician characters. For example, the May 8, 2008 episode entitled "The Becoming" showed the surgeons running the surgical board; providing all psychosocial care to distraught patients and families; giving IV medications; doing all patient monitoring, including of a patient's intracranial pressure; and doing a clinical trial essentially by themselves. When nurses do not receive credit for their own work, it is difficult for them to attract the clinical and educational resources they need to resolve the nursing shortage that takes lives worldwide.

In addition, the show sometimes includes plotlines that reflect an obvious lack of respect for nursing and/or nurses. For example, in the May 8 episode, Seattle Grace's surgical nurses boycotted all surgeries of plastic surgeon Mark "McSteamy" Sloane because he had loved and left too many of them. The boycott lasted until resident Miranda Bailey gave the mute ninnies a public lecture on romantic maturity and how their hurt feelings were probably a little less important than the lives that could be saved by actually doing the surgeries. The plotline reinforced the stereotype that nurses are serfs grasping at any available hunky physician.

I urge you to consider the effect "Grey's" has on the many millions of people who watch it all over the world. Please consider introducing nurse characters to do the nursing work, and showing some understanding that nurses are professionals with years of college-level education who save lives and improve outcomes every day.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
Executive Director
The Truth About Nursing
203 Churchwardens Rd.
Baltimore MD 21212
410-323-1100
ssummers@truthaboutnursing.org