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Nov 2004 news on Nursing in the Media
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January 12, 2011 -- Tonight's series premiere of ABC's new Shonda Rhimes drama Off the Map introduced the standard complement of seven smart, attractive physician characters saving lives, as the hot senior ones train the hot junior ones. Set at a clinic "somewhere in South America" that seems to be staffed mainly by U.S. physicians, the show does display a little more awareness of global public health issues than Rhimes' other surgeon-centric products. And it occasionally includes pointed criticism of the cultural insensitivity and narrow vision of health care displayed by a couple newly arrived physicians. But clinic boss Ben Keeton (right) was also supposedly the youngest chief of surgery ever at UCLA before starting the clinic, and one of the new physicians gushes that he's "one of the greatest humanitarians of our time." Whatever nuggets the show may include about U.S. arrogance and caring for the poor, the main theme still seems to be U.S. physicians saving native people and tourists, especially in trauma settings. We're not quite sure how to take the premiere's title, "Saved By the Great White Hope." Maybe the show is being ironic, but the show does reflect the basic Rhimes world view that physicians are demi-gods. Every clinical scene features physicians alone providing all skilled care, including lots of care that nurses do in real life. There are no significant nurse characters, and in the premiere, we saw only two notable references to nursing, both damaging, and both involving recently arrived U.S. physician Mina Minard. In one scene, Minard demands epinephrine for a clinic patient who is having an asthma attack, and a local nurse in patterned scrubs fetches and hands it over. Minard grabs the drug, saves the patient, and receives all the credit. In the other scene, Minard complains to a fellow U.S. physician that the other physician is lucky to have a seriously ill patient to care for, because Minard just "handed out Band-Aids today…like a school nurse!" Minard starts to learn that the clinic's less exotic care has value, and she will likely grow in other ways. But we doubt anyone will question the assumption that nurses are low-skilled lackeys who play no important role in health care, whether at elite hospitals or remote clinics--whose foreign health professionals are, incidentally, more likely to be nurses than physicians, as is the case with Médecins Sans Frontières. The series premiere was written by series creator Jenna Bans. more...and please join our letter-writing campaign!
All the work, none of the pay, zero glory
June 7, 2010 -- The second season of Showtime's Nurse Jackie continued to offer the most thoughtful and persuasive treatment of nursing issues on U.S. television. The season also featured more of emergency nurse Jackie Peyton's drug abuse, adultery, and webs of deceit. However, as always, Jackie's issues are not nursing stereotypes, but the troubles of one complex individual. As the season approached tonight's finale, Jackie and her protégé Zoey Barkow continued to display clinical prowess. Jackie skillfully worked the system to help a despairing lymphoma patient find some relief from his debilitating nausea and to provide some expert, if unpleasant, advice to an ex-football star with early onset dementia. Meanwhile, Zoey saved a boy's life by intubating and resuscitating him, and saved another patient by picking up on a blood clot that could easily have led to a pulmonary embolism, something the arrogant but marginal physician Fitch Cooper missed. The show's final episodes also included a somewhat ambiguous take on men in nursing. Nurse Sam is shown to be a fairly cool, perceptive individual with an attractive girlfriend, but she breaks up with Sam after sleeping with Cooper, saying she is doing so because Sam is a nurse. Sam proceeds to break Cooper's nose. This could be interpreted as a frank examination or even subversion of anti-male nurse bias, a reinforcement of that bias, or all of the above. More troubling were the show's confused messages about nursing authority. Several plotlines had Cooper wrongly asserting that he was in charge of and could even fire nurses, with no direct rebuttal. Cooper did more than once end up in nurse manager Gloria Akalitus's office seeking to have her discipline nurses, with little success, which at least suggested that he could not take a significant adverse employment action on his own. But why can't some character just state that although nurses do have less power, they do not report to physicians because they practice a distinct, autonomous profession? In any case, the show still provides U.S. television's most compelling account of the value of nursing, and it does not hurt that the show's dramatic quality remains higher than that of any other hospital show. We thank those responsible for the show. more...
October 21, 2010 -- In recent New York Times articles on substantive health care topics, the treatment of nursing ranges from very good to abysmal. At one end of the spectrum is Lesley Alderman's June 20 "Patient Money" piece on discharge planning, which offers some good practical tips for patients but fails to consult a single nurse, even though nurses have been primarily responsible for discharge planning for over a century and still are, at least to the extent under-staffing allows. Alderman discusses the newly created job of "discharge planner," but it's not clear most readers would know that these are often nurses, and the piece manages to leave the impression that discharge planning is something physicians recently invented. Almost as bad is today's "Doctor and Patient" column by Pauline Chen, M.D., which explores problems associated with the use of contact precautions for vulnerable patients. Chen sometimes does a very good job of highlighting nurses' role in care, but this piece shows a disappointing lack of recognition that nurses are the professionals most involved with contact precautions. Chen speaks of "clinicians," but she quotes only physicians, and the word "nurse" does not even appear. Much better is Gardiner Harris's long August 20 report on the dangers posed to hospital patients by look-alike tubes. That piece conveys the central role nurses play in the care involved and even briefly consults a couple nurses, though it focuses mainly on physicians and others involved in relevant U.S. device approval processes. Best of all is Milt Freudenheim's long June 29 piece on geriatric care. That report spends plenty of time on physicians, but it also focuses to a large extent on the roles and views of geriatric care nurses, quoting nurse practitioners and nursing leaders, including pioneering scholars Mary Naylor and Terry Fulmer. On the whole, Times health reporting and commentary still fall way short of giving a fair account of the importance of nursing, but there are good pieces from time to time, and we thank the paper for those. more...
Register Now for The Truth's First Annual Conference: Empowering Nurses and Improving Care
January 28, 2011 -- Register now with an early bird registration discount of $395 (student discount 35%) before February 10th. The Truth About Nursing's first annual conference will be held in New Orleans the weekend of April 15-17, 2011, at the beautiful Marriott Renaissance Arts Hotel, located in the heart of this fabulous city! The conference theme is "Empowering Nurses and Improving Care Through Better Understanding of Nursing." Speakers will include Kathleen Bartholomew, Donna Cardillo, Sandy Summers, and a representative of Rutgers University's 2012 Project, who will tell us how to get more nurses into politics! Other topics include enhancing public understanding of nursing through the media, educating decision-makers and physician colleagues about nursing, effective strategies to improve working relationships, and practical steps toward achieving nursing empowerment. This work is critical in helping the nursing profession get the respect and resources that it deserves and that patients need. Registration will open soon, and continuing education credits are anticipated. Exciting events include a welcome cocktail reception and a Riverboat Jazz Dinner Cruise on the Mississippi. Come enjoy the food and culture of the Crescent City as you explore how to move nursing forward! Get details here...
The 2010 Truth About Nursing Awards Rank Best and Worst Media Portrayals of Nursing
ListJanuary 6, 2011 -- The Truth About Nursing announces the eighth annual list of the best and worst media portrayals of nurses. The year 2010 featured the continuation of Nurse Jackie and two other nurse-focused U.S television shows, but it also included countless damaging distortions from long-running hits like Grey's Anatomy and a new crop of "naughty nurse" imagery from sources ranging from Mariah Carey to Helen Mirren to Dr. Oz. more...
December 2, 2010 -- Today MSNBC ran a short "weird news" item about a common event: sexual abuse based at least partly on patients' assumption that it's OK if the victim is a nurse. Teresa Masterson's piece tells the story of Joseph Wolf of Allentown, PA, a man who reportedly claimed that the reason he twice grabbed an emergency room nurse's buttocks was to say "thank you" for her care. Of course, this is a creative justification for abuse, but countless nurses have been "thanked" this way throughout their careers. What makes this story more notable is what Wolf apparently told the nurse after grabbing her: "Well, you're a nurse, right?" In other words, it's part of your job to provide sexual services, or at least to endure sexual abuse. Where would people get the idea that nurses are sex toys? Could it be the media, at least to some extent? You know--the same media the produces The Dr. Oz Show, which just last month included a segment featuring naughty "nurses" dancing with Oz as an "attempt at humor" in a segment about losing weight? When a prominent physician like Oz doesn't get it--even his "apology" suggested that he thought the nurses who objected were just too sensitive--what chance does the average patient have to understand these issues? It's as hard to imagine Oz dancing with women in naughty physician or lawyer outfits as it is to imagine a person following up a sexual assault with, "well, you're a physician," or "well, you're a lawyer." We thank MSNBC and other news outlets for reporting on this incident. But we saw no hint in these stories that most nurses experience this kind of abuse, or that not enough is done to address the abuse, to say nothing of the stereotypes that underlie it. more...
December 6, 2010 -- Today reporter Lynn Elber of the Associated Press covered our campaign to ask Mehmet Oz, host of The Dr. Oz Show, to apologize and make amends for a November 4 weight loss segment in which "nurses" "got sexy" and danced with Oz. The AP story quoted Truth director Sandy Summers and American Nurses Association spokeswoman Joan Hurwitz, who called the segment a "sexist caricature of nursing." The story was picked up by 2,200 news organs across the world, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Online Nigeria, the Times of India, New Zealand Yahoo and the Arabic language Wael El-Ebrashy. Some publications wrote their own pieces; these included The Hartford Courant ("Does your nurse dance/dress provocatively?"), the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Mail, and TV Guide. In a statement released to the AP in response to the story, the show said that Oz "has worked alongside extraordinary nursing professionals throughout his medical career and holds nurses in the highest regard as they save lives and heal patients. Any attempt at humor should never call into question Dr. Oz's utmost respect for the nurses with whom he works and has lauded in other shows." The statement said that the segment "included a costume that was considered offensive to some and we apologize if there were any hurt feelings," and the show promised to "do better in the future." This is progress, though the hedging phrases "considered offensive to some" and "hurt feelings" clearly suggest that the show thinks the nurses who objected are just being too sensitive and that no serious issues are involved here. To our knowledge the show has done nothing to show that it really understands what it did wrong or that Oz intends to address the issue personally or to make amends. For instance, Oz might do something on air to address the poor public understanding of nursing to which his show contributed; he might show specifically how nurses "save lives and heal patients." Apart from the "saving lives" bit, the vague "lauding" on display in Oz's statement means little. But we believe that Oz and his producers do at least understand now that there is some problem with naughty nurse imagery, and that they will hesitate before using it again. We thank those who wrote the hundreds of powerful letters to Dr. Oz in support of the campaign. You made this possible! more...
October 2010 -- The cover story in this month's Reader's Digest offers a fairly strong look at hospital errors, relying mainly on short personal essays by five health professionals. Three are physicians, and the feature has other physician-centric elements, including the title on the magazine's cover, "Doctors Confess Their Fatal Mistakes." But the final essay is by nurse Sunnie Bell, who gives a powerful account of how a patient died because a physician ignored Bell's warnings. Bell then urges several specific improvements in nurses' working conditions. Her essay vividly illustrates how disrespect for nursing can kill, and it at least suggests the role nurses should play as patient advocates. Another piece, a sad story by a pharmacist who was criminally prosecuted for a deadly error, also shows that physicians are not the only health professionals whose work matters. One of the physician pieces is by Johns Hopkins's Peter Pronovost, a health care errors expert who has become well known for his efforts to promote the use of checklists and other safety measures. Pronovost makes a point, as he often does, to include nursing empowerment as a key element of reform. And a sidebar with short descriptions of some new patient safety ideas includes one about Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, where "WalkRounds" are done by "senior executives," a category that reportedly includes the chief nursing officer! Some publications would have mentioned only the CEO and the chief of medicine. Unfortunately, an essay by University of California San Francisco physician Robert Wachter indicates a distressing lack of awareness of the role nurses play in monitoring patient conditions and in hospital care generally, as the author attributes a failure to detect an impending pulmonary embolism 30 years ago solely to himself (as a second year medical student) and the hierarchy of physicians on duty. On the whole, though, Joe Kita's cover story includes nursing to an extent that is unusual for such an influential publication. We commend him and Reader's Digest. more...
August 2, 2010 -- Recent news items illustrate the important contributions family nurse practitioners make in preventing and diagnosing deadly health problems. On June 13, the Houston Chronicle ran a "Sunday Q&A" feature by Cindy George in which University of Texas nursing professor Elda Ramirez gives advice on how to cope with the very hot days that region experiences. Ramirez clearly has knowledge, but she also displays an ability to convey practical health information to lay people in a direct, engaging way that is one of the hallmarks of NP practice. And today, the University of Central Florida's Today site posted an article by KJ Lewis about Arden Monroe-Obermeit, who appeared as a morgue technician on the Discovery Channel reality show Dr. G: Medical Examiner. Monroe-Obermeit was about to graduate from the university with a nursing degree, and to enter its Doctor of Nursing Practice program so she could help people avoid ending up in the morgue because of preventable conditions. The article reports that Monroe-Obermeit's new career path was inspired partly by an NP who diagnosed her Cushings disease when many physicians could not. We thank those responsible for these helpful pieces, which look past stereotypes and recognize nursing expertise. more...
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Thinking right, thinking bright!
November 4, 2010 -- Today the popular daytime television program The Dr. Oz Show offered viewers an amazingly concentrated package of harmful nursing stereotypes, all wrapped up in a short segment about Angel Williams, who lost 200 pounds by dancing. We're all for any safe and effective weight loss strategy. But Williams dressed in a regressive short white nurse's dress, said she was going to "get sexy" and unbuttoned the top of the dress as she prepared to lead Oz in some dancing, and told Oz that she and a group of similarly attired dancers would be "your nurses, we're gonna keep America moving for you." No doubt the show thought it would be fun to present these women as Oz's sexy nurse backup dancers--doesn't every celebrity physician have those? Especially surgeons like Dr. Oz! Unfortunately, this short segment managed to reinforce a slew of stereotypes: the naughty nurse, the low-skilled physician handmaiden, and the idea that nursing is for females living in a past era. And far from looking uncomfortable about these nursing elements, Oz himself twice referred to the dancers as Williams's "fellow nurses." After Williams told Oz what the "nurses" would do "for" him, Oz responded, "I love it." We don't. Please tell Dr. Oz that nurses are skilled, autonomous health professionals--despite the Oprah protégé's multimedia health empire and his position on the Columbia Medical School faculty, it's not clear that he knows. more... please join our letter-writing campaign! or see our press release.
Bad reputation: Al Bawaba on protest of Egyptian nurse television character
August 16, 2010 -- Today the Jordan-based news service Al Bawaba ran a brief, unsigned report of a protest by the Egyptian Nurses Union about a new television show in which a nurse character steals medicines to sell on the black market, "in addition to performing polygamy and going against all the teaching of Islam." The piece says that the head of the union, Fathi Al Bana, believes the writers should have consulted the union about the show, and she says the union's board will meet to decide what actions to take. The article also includes an insightful paragraph about the causes and effects of nursing's poor image, relying on Dr. Nihad Abd Al Salam, a professor at the International Nurses Academy. This professor explains that the media reinforces the widespread perception that nurses are "girls with bad reputations who try to seduce doctors and rich patients," and that this image in turn has caused many families to forbid their daughters to become nurses. We thank Al Bawaba for this helpful, if short, article. more...
Aggravating: The nursing shortage in Korea and Israel
July 6, 2010 -- Two recent press reports offer very different perspectives on the global nursing shortage, though they do have one thing in common: the content of each piece is somewhat at odds with its own headline. On June 22, the Korea Times published Bae Ji-sook's "Shortage of nurses aggravating." From that headline, you might think that the piece would be about how the shortage means patients must sometimes put up with lukewarm tea. But in fact, the report powerfully describes the plight of under-staffed nurses asked to assume crushing workloads. The piece does not discuss potential solutions, and it might have made clear that under-staffing endangers patients. But it certainly shows how these conditions affect the nurses, portraying a workplace in which, according to the piece's main source, nurses "suffer from constant fatigue" and are "virtually isolated from the other part of the world because after work, all [they] can think about is getting enough sleep." And today, the Jerusalem Post ran a report by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich about the plans of the Israeli government to address that nation's shortages of health workers. The headline is "Panel decries nurse, doctor shortages," but even though about 75% of the profession-specific information here is about an alleged physician shortage, Israel appears to have a higher ratio of physicians to people than most countries, including the United States. The piece does mention a few government ideas intended to help nursing, including plans to introduce "nurse assistants" and to improve nurse recruiting and education, but there is no detail. In any case, we thank those responsible for these pieces, especially the Korea Times one, for drawing attention to a nursing shortage that has not gone away just because it has been discussed for more than a decade. more...
June 10, 2010 -- Today the Seattle Times published a piece by Sharon Randall, a nationally syndicated columnist, that offered one of the more striking combinations of good intentions and nurse stereotyping that we've seen recently. "Confessions of a home nurse" is built around the comic idea that Randall was acting as a "nurse," though by her own account a highly imperfect one, in caring for her husband after a recent operation, as well as in caring for her child after he was born years ago. Randall throws in positive accounts of the care she and her child received from real nurses, those "compassionate" "angels" whose care is apparently defined by "loving kindness" and "tender mercy," phrases she manages to use twice. We recognize that Randall is not suggesting she is a real, licensed registered nurse--we know the term "nurse" is still commonly used to mean unskilled tending--and her piece is all about how bad she is at doing even that. But her relentless equating of such unskilled care with actual nursing, in a context that really does superficially resemble professional nursing (unlike, say, "nursing a beer"), is damaging because it reinforces the idea that nursing requires little skill or education. Randall's writing comically, but the subtext--which no one will take as a joke--is that what makes a real nurse is kindness, patience, and endurance. Of course those things are important in nursing, but so are college-level science education and advanced clinical skills. Randall could probably take a stab at some of the most basic things physicians do too. But we doubt she would write a whole piece based on the idea that she was a flawed physician. We urge her to think more carefully about how unskilled and angel stereotyping makes the work of real nurses harder. more...
Attracting more women--and nurses--to politics
November 2, 2010 -- As we look forward from today's general election in the U.S., the 2012 Project wants to tell the Truth's members about the Project's non-profit, non-partisan campaign to encourage women in eight target fields - including nursing - to pursue public office in the United States. The Project aims to diversify U.S. policy-making bodies along gender and professional lines. The Project is affiliated with Rutgers, New Jersey's state university, and it is gaining national attention, with recent coverage on CNN American Morning and in the Washington Post. You can also learn more from the 2012 Project's website, www.the2012project.us. The Project's faculty of women who formerly held elective office speak to the impact of serving in public office. The Project's faculty wants to present to women in nursing, including at conferences and meetings. Following presentations, the Project helps connect interested persons to political resources that will help them succeed. If an in-person presentation is not possible, the Project is glad to explore alternatives, including webinars. The Project may also be able to craft an online piece about the impact of nurses serving in public office. The Truth believes that nursing would benefit if more nurses--male and female--assumed positions of influence, because nurse decision-makers would be more likely to understand the importance and current needs of the profession. We urge supporters to consider how the Project might help them help nursing. more...
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
May 2010 -- The May 12 season finale of NBC's drama Mercy turned out to be the series finale, since the network canceled the show soon afterwards because of its low ratings. That's too bad, because in its 22 episodes, creator Liz Heldens's funny, well-acted show included many fine examples of nursing skill, patient advocacy, life-saving, and even some autonomy. The show's nursing portrayal did have flaws. Its generally constructive, peer-oriented approach to nurse-physician relations was at times undermined by suggestions that nurses report to physicians, and the show occasionally fell prey to other nursing stereotypes. The last two episodes of the series illustrate these mixed features. In the finale, lead character Veronica Flanagan saves the life of a boy trapped in a collapsed building, in part by amputating his arm with guidance she gets by cell phone from physician Chris Sands. In another plotline, nurse Chloe Payne correctly diagnoses a patient with airport malaria, despite resistance from physician Gillian Jelani. Both of those plotlines are showcases for nursing skill and advocacy. But both can also be read to suggest that nurses achieve to the extent they act like physicians; Gillian praises Chloe by noting that she was "thinking like a doctor." And that's nothing compared to one of the last scenes in the finale, which finds Chloe reacting to an apparent romantic rejection from cardiologist Joe Briggs by vowing to become a physician herself. Another plotline that conveys real skill and advocacy by nurses Angel Garcia and Sonia Jimenez in caring for a beating victim also suggests that physician Dan Harris directs nurse staffing. Why didn't enough people watch Mercy? Occasionally the show did feel flat, contrived, or silly, but that's also true of some successful shows. Mercy seemed to suffer from a difficult time slot, and the perception that it was the last in a glut of new shows about nurses (Nurse Jackie, HawthoRNe) and that nurses do not deserve so much attention. However, despite Mercy's flaws, the show's message that nurses play the central role in the skilled care of hospital patients and its strong portrayals of nursing expertise and advocacy place Mercy among the best television shows for nursing in Hollywood history. more...
April 20, 2010 -- Today the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a very good article by Stacey Burling about a new University of Pennsylvania study finding that the lives of hundreds of surgical patients could be saved if hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey followed the minimum nurse staffing ratios that have been required in California since 2004. The study also found that nurses in California, where staffing was better, liked their jobs more and felt less burned out. The study was led by prominent Penn nursing scholar Linda Aiken, who has published other ground-breaking studies over the years linking improved nurse staffing to lower patient mortality and reduced nurse burnout. The article provides context about the larger implications of the study on quality of care, nurse staffing legislation pending in various states, the ongoing nursing shortage, and even the then-current strike by nurses and others at Philadelphia's Temple University Hospital, a dispute in which nurse-to-patient ratios were a major issue. The piece includes helpful quotes from Professor Aiken and the nurses' union president Patricia Eakin, as well as ratio opponents, the Temple hospital's interim CEO Sandy Gomberg (a nurse!) and New Jersey Hospital Association representative Aline Holmes. Aiken describes the other research showing that better nurse staffing improves patient outcomes, and Eakin explains specifically how under-staffing prevents nurses from giving good care. We thank Ms. Burling and the Inquirer for this helpful report on topics that are vital to nursing practice. more...
April 15, 2010 -- Two very good recent press reports illustrate how nursing innovations are saving lives in hospitals today, but they also show how far society has to go in understanding the value of what nurses do. Today, the Phoenix television station ABC-15 posted a short but helpful item on its web site describing a cooling blanket developed by nurses at Banner Baywood Heart Hospital which has been very effective in helping to increase patient survival and brain function. The very short piece manages to include good quotes from Lauren Woffinden, the nurse manager who was instrumental in developing the induced hypothermia protocols, and another nurse who provides additional explanation. But don't get too excited. A patient whose wife was recently saved by the treatment gushes: "Of course I'm not a doctor. I have no idea how that works, but whatever it did it saved her mind, her brain. She knew everybody, it's a miracle." Yes, thank goodness those physicians understand this stuff! Meanwhile, on April 10, the Courier-Express (DuBois, PA) ran a good, longer report by Katie Weidenboerner about the Nurture Rest, a positioning pillow for NICU babies that nurse Nicole Kovalyak of DuBois Regional Medical Center invented to promote rest, comfort, and better breathing, and thus better outcomes. Some elements of Kovalyak's pillow mimic the position of an infant on a mother's chest, but others actually simulate the womb for babies who have left it too soon. The ever-evolving device has been patented and has been in use at the hospital for years. But Kovalyak reports that interest from manufacturers has been slight, and we wonder if one factor is the profession of the person behind the pillow. Nurses' health care achievements greatly exceed society's understanding of them. But press reports like these two are a great way to close that gap. more...
How do so many journalists miss it?
September 27, 2010 -- Today The Washington Post published a lengthy entry in its "Medical Mysteries" series headlined "Nurse solves mysterious ailment that puzzled orthopedists, oncologist." Sandra G. Boodman's piece describes a local man who spent more than a year consulting various specialist physicians, enduring "two unnecessary knee surgeries and dozens of physical therapy sessions, as well as acupuncture and other useless and sometimes painful treatments that cost thousands of dollars," before "a nurse" at an infectious disease specialist's office suggested that he might have Lyme disease. He did. You might think, then, that the article would be a tribute to nursing expertise, but instead the central fact of the story is overwhelmed by disrespect for nursing. It's not just that the piece repeatedly dismisses what the nurse did by calling it "simple" and "obvious," "a basic query by a nurse, not the acumen of five specialists." No, the most striking thing is that in this 1,300 word story describing all the erroneous thinking of the "specialists," the nurse who actually solved the problem is never named, quoted, or further described. It's true that none of the specialists are named or quoted directly either, which certainly protects them from embarrassment. And it seems that the approach of these pieces is to rely mainly on the patient's account; perhaps this patient never actually met the nurse, though he says he "remains grateful" to the nurse. But the piece does name and quote an infectious-disease expert the patient consulted after the diagnosis, so it might have done more with the nurse, even if could not give the nurse's real name. The net effect of what we do have here is to suggest that the nurse solved the problem by being so simple and limited, with a mind uncluttered by real expertise. Needless to say, there is no suggestion that maybe the nurse solved the problem because of her own expertise, or the nature of nursing, including the profession's holistic and flexible approach, which is no less "expert" for being broad. The piece pokes fun at the specialist physicians, but it still reinforces the idea that they are the main source of health knowledge--the same idea that seems to have gotten this patient in so much trouble. more...
37 to 0? September 2010 -- As the 2010-2011 U.S. television season starts, there appears to be no major nurse character on any regular prime time broadcast show for the first time in more than 40 years. In part that is because so many of the health-related shows from last year have left the air, including all of the shows that premiered in 2009, notably NBC's generally helpful nurse drama Mercy, but also CBS's physician-centric Three Rivers and Miami Medical, which did each have one recurring nurse character. Other departures had little effect on the portrayal of nursing, including the ends of the long-running Scrubs (ABC), which had shed its lone nurse character the prior season, and FX's nip-tuck, which never had a significant nurse character. The one returning show that did have a nurse character, ABC's Private Practice (premieres Sept. 23), killed him off at the end of last season, when nurse midwife Dell Parker died from a car crash, just after giddily announcing that he had been admitted to medical school. The dominant hospital shows, Fox's House (Sept. 20) and ABC's Grey Anatomy (Sept. 23), still have no nurse characters as they start their seventh seasons. There appear to be just two new shows with any real health care focus: ABC's Body of Proof (October), which stars Dana Delany as an elite surgeon-turned-medical examiner, and ABC's Off the Map (mid-season), a new product from Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes about five young physicians who work to save the poor at a remote clinic in South America. We see no nurse characters anywhere, though there are conflicting signals about whether one minor character on Off the Map is a nurse or physician. Leaving aside that mid-season character, of the five health-related prime time broadcast shows that are slated to start seasons this year, regular physician characters appear to outnumber nurse characters by roughly 37 to 0. Of course, nurses will not be completely absent from the small screen, since non-regular season cable shows Nurse Jackie (Showtime) and HawthoRNe (TNT) will return for third seasons in 2011. And there is even a nurse character on A&E's new summer police drama The Glades, which will return next year (though she is carrying on Dell's Hollywood dream by attending medical school). But given the dominance of the broadcast shows, which attract millions more viewers to many more episodes, the television landscape will remain dominated by programs that reinforce the false notion that physicians provide all important health care. more...
"A midwife in a world of doctors"
August 2010 -- In the last episodes of the third season of ABC's Private Practice, the show killed off its one nurse character, midwife Dell Parker. That was no great loss to nursing, but the plotline that played out in the May 6 and 13, 2010 episodes included attacks on the profession, most notably through Dell's elation at having just been admitted to medical school. That was a powerful reinforcement of the enduring Hollywood fantasy that the most able nurses achieve by going to medical school, when in fact they are perhaps 100 times more likely to attend graduate school in nursing. The wannabe-physician stereotype is one with which real advanced practice nurses and of the wannabe-physician stereotype with which real advanced practice nurses and men in nursing must still contend. In an amusing twist, the key May 6 episode was written by physician Fred Einesman, a former advisor to NBC's ER, which also pushed the wannabe-physician theme. Private Practice did, rarely, include minor plotlines in which Dell actually showed some aptitude for patient care and some limited autonomy. For instance, although the March 25, 2010 episode was mostly about how amazing the show's physician characters are, Dell did get to deliver a baby by himself in the field. And because he successfully executed a risky maneuver to free the baby, who was stuck in the birth canal, physician Cooper credited Dell with saving two lives! But Dell's exit reminded us of what the show really thought of midwifery and nursing. Don't take our word for it. In the May 24-June 6 issue of TV Guide, show creator Shonda Rhimes explained that Dell was "a midwife in a world of doctors. Babies can only be delivered in so many episodes. Dell got lots of coffee, answered lots of phones." She lauded actor Chris Lowell by noting that "an actor of his caliber should be doing Shakespeare, not handing people charts." In other words, nurses and midwives don't do much of interest, which is why Dell spent so much time doing receptionist work, and why he eventually had to go. But at least he has now gone on to that great medical school in the sky! more...and see video clips from the relevant shows.
August 2, 2010 -- This week The New Yorker ran "Letting Go," a 12,000-word article about end-of-life care by surgeon and health writer Atul Gawande. This "Annals of Medicine" piece is physician-centric, quoting seven physicians and repeatedly implying that physicians are the only health providers whose views and actions really matter on this issue, and more broadly, that physicians direct health care. But the article also includes a surprisingly substantial look at the skilled work of Boston hospice nurse Sarah Creed, as Gawande accompanies her on patient visits and actually relies on some of her account of hospice care, providing a far more substantial look at the nursing role in palliative care than did a long December 2009 New York Times story about sedation of the dying. Gawande's New Yorker piece offers a fairly candid and progressive view of end-of-life care, arguing that people in the U.S. too often approach the final days of life with an expensive heroic treatment model that can needlessly increase suffering and even shorten life. He stresses that careful discussion of patients' end-of-life priorities, though very difficult, seems to be the key to improving this situation (though he notes that recent U.S. health reform efforts to provide funding for such discussions were doomed by claims that they were "death panels"). Gawande does not seem to be aware that nurses, who have a holistic practice model and who have long spent far more time with the dying than any other health professionals, have been pushing just this perspective on end-of-life care for decades. And he consults no nurse as a stand-alone expert on end-of-life care, as he does several physicians; we guess that would be asking too much. But by including Creed, the piece does give nursing serious, sustained attention that is unusual in an elite magazine like this. We commend Gawande and the New Yorker for that. more...
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June 14, 2010 -- Tonight the actress Helen Mirren appeared on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman to promote her new film Love Ranch, which is about a brothel in Reno. In describing a real brothel that she visited to do research, Mirren said that the prostitutes there were very sweet and welcoming. Letterman noted that some people argue that prostitutes are the victims of something that has led them to do this work. Mirren agreed that many of them are "damaged" and "come from dysfunctional backgrounds," but she also observed that "a lot of girls who work in that industry actually come from the nursing industry, which kind of makes sense, because they're used to naked bodies, it's not intimidating to them, you know, the body and the bodily functions, if you like." Letterman responded that that must mean a "guy like" him could visit the brothel for a "check-up." We assume that there is some basis in Mirren's personal experience for her comments, but we're not aware of any data showing that a disproportionate number of prostitutes first became nurses. Suggesting as much reinforces the naughty nurse stereotype that has undermined nursing for decades, not least because of the activities of the "film industry."
And it's not helpful to have a celebrity compare nursing care directly to acts of prostitution. We'll resist analyzing whether prostitution has more in common with nursing or acting, and just note that our understanding is that what prostitutes do tend to have in common is a history of serious abuse and few other skills. It seems unlikely, to say the least, that many "girls" with valuable nursing skills would become prostitutes. Of course, nurses do use those advanced skills to help prostitutes cope with the consequences of their dangerous work. We urge the famously candid Dame Helen to think more carefully before making statements that damage nursing. more... and please join our letter-writing campaign and see the film clip...
Pregnancy Pact: A movie review
2010 -- Lifetime's The Pregnancy Pact portrays several high school girls who intentionally get pregnant, apparently seduced by fantasies of loving, carefree motherhoods. The movie was "inspired by a true story" and it's a competent made-for-TV issue melodrama, engaging enough if somewhat schematic and bland. Some might also see in the movie a "ripped from the headlines" exploitation of a serious and complex problem, particularly since the film references some events that really happened in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 2008, but it reportedly invents key story elements. The movie does make a fairly serious effort to explore some basic aspects of teen pregnancy, showing young females who see little future beyond child-rearing. It seems like almost everyone involved here--teens, parents, and community leaders--is lying to someone. The film presents the school nurse as a forceful advocate for better pregnancy prevention, a compassionate professional who takes on the school administration and a "family values" group to try to stem the school's teen pregnancy "epidemic." The nurse might have done some direct counseling of the pregnant students, as a real nurse would. And the character is limited. She never gets at the deeper issues involved in the pregnancies, and she resigns in protest roughly a quarter of the way through the movie, never to reappear. The main force for a more progressive approach to teen pregnancy in the film is actually a relentless young New York video blogger who bonds with the teens and does far more to get to the bottom of the epidemic. Still, the portrayal of the nurse as an articulate professional who is willing to make a big personal sacrifice to advance public health debunks the popular notion that school nurses are just about aspirin and band-aids. And that's especially helpful at a time when U.S. school districts face extraordinary pressure to cut costs. more...
The Truth receives 501(c)(3) status
August 4, 2010 -- Today The Truth About Nursing was notified that it qualifies as a charitable non-profit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code. That means donations to the Truth made since its inception at the end of 2008 are tax-deductible as allowed by law. See our 501(c)(3) status letter here. Please make a tax-deductible donation to support our work to improve understanding of nursing today. Thank you!
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August 2010 -- Five episodes from the sixth season of ABC's Grey's Anatomy (2009-2010) illustrate the two main stereotypes that the hit show continues to reinforce: that nurses are physician handmaidens, and that they are low-skilled workers worthy only of contempt. As always, the show's 12 main characters--all surgeons--provide all the health care that matters, including vital care that nurses do in real life. In one episode, after senior surgeon Derek Shepherd asks female surgical resident Lexie Grey to monitor his own health during a marathon surgery, a male resident mocks Lexie by telling her that it sounds like she will be Shepherd's "bitch" and urging her to "have fun playing nurse." Lexie will have her revenge on her Seattle Grace colleague, but the show makes no effort to defend nursing. Another episode flashes back to 1982 to show surgical pioneer Ellis Grey (Meredith Grey's mother) as a resident fighting off a male colleague's claim that she is just a "nurse" who has no business defibrillating, though even in 1982, nurses did plenty of defibrillation. Again, there is no defense of nursing. Two other episodes include brief but damaging appearances by nurse Tyler, a bitter lackey who could not care less about patients and views his role as doing as little as possible to help the physicians who actually provide expert care. And still another episode features a rare prime time mention of nurse practitioners. Not surprisingly, it is an insult, as Shepherd suggests that another surgeon is wasting her time doing after-care since a "nurse practitioner can do this." Grey's seems to have made little progress since the anti-nurse insults of its first episodes five long years ago (e.g., "Did you just call me a nurse?"; "You're the pig who called Meredith a nurse!"). As in the early days, the show wants us to feel the pain of brilliant female physicians who must fight to avoid being mistaken for nurses, members of the backwards servant class of health care. We urge the show to consider if it could pursue its apparent mission of deifying physicians without attacking nurses quite so directly. more, please join our letter-writing campaign ... and see the film clips from 5 notable episodes!
July 22, 2010 -- Tonight ABC will air the fifth episode of Boston Med, the eight-part documentary about the work and personal lives of health care workers at Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women's, and Children's hospitals. Overall, Boston Med is almost as physician-centric as producer Terence Wrong's previous "greatest hospitals" efforts Hopkins 24/7 (2000) and Hopkins (2008), focusing overwhelmingly on physicians and generally presenting them as the brilliant providers of all meaningful health care. But the new series has received an amazingly positive reaction from some reviewers and even some nurses because, along with the 16 physicians and surgeons profiled in the four episodes that have aired so far, there is one nurse! In a few scenes, this MGH nurse, Amanda Grabowski, displays technical knowledge and gives viewers some sense of nurses' roles as patient advocates and autonomous practitioners. But as the episodes go on, the show steadily forgets her clinical work, focusing instead on her social life. This approach undermines the sense of her as a serious professional, and even flirts with the stereotype that nurses are mainly about romance. The episodes do portray the personal lives of some of the physicians, but the show also continues to focus on their work as esteemed health experts. The ABC web site suggests that there will be another MGH ED nurse profiled in at least the fifth episode, Mike O'Donnell; perhaps his segment will convey something of what it is to be a man in nursing. But it's unlikely the nurse elements will have much impact alongside what will likely be profiles of some 25 physicians, especially since those profiles utterly ignore the nurses who actually provide most of the skilled care to the patients portrayed. The overall message is that physicians, especially surgeons, are the life-savers who do everything that matters. Boston Med is probably a small step forward for Terence Wrong, since the nurse profiles here may be more substantial than the fleeting nurse appearances in Hopkins two years ago. But the new series could not be compared to a documentary like Richard Khan's Nursing Diaries (2004), or even a drama like Mercy (2009-10), which feature strong, sustained portrayals of nursing skill and care. more...
UPDATE on Cali Nurse campaign!
July 9, 2010 -- We have just had a productive conversation with Eli Holzman, the Executive Vice President of Studio Lambert, the production company that is planning to produce Cali Nurse. Mr. Holzman and his show colleagues received 78 emails (33 original--thank you!) from nurses and others concerned about the show in the two days since we launched our letter-writing campaign. He expressed concern about the stereotypes that plague nurses and vowed to try to avoid them in the show. He said that Cali Nurse is at least a year away from production, but that as work on it proceeds in the coming months, he will keep in mind all of the input he has received from us. He is also interested in reading our book Saving Lives, which explains these stereotypes, and we will send copies to his production team. (Thanks to those who have donated copies of the book so that we can send them to the media!) We also offered to provide advice to the show as it goes forward. Of course it is too soon to say what the ultimate result of all this will be, but we thank you so much for taking the time and effort to speak out about the potential pitfalls of the show. Your voices made the difference!
July 2010 -- Recently MysticArt Pictures issued a casting call for a new "sexy docu-series" called Cali Nurse, to be produced by the prominent production company Studio Lambert. The show is seeking real nurses and nursing students, but the casting material makes clear that it is going to focus on damaging stereotypes. The show wants "gorgeous" young females (ages 21-30 only) who will experience "comedy, romance, and fun" and are all about "big hearts" and "dates with McDreamy." We didn't notice anything in the casting call about being bright, articulate, tough, or skilled, qualities that real nurses need to improve patient outcomes, though the casting call did suggest that the show would "capture the lives of those learning to save lives." The producers seem to be aiming at a reality show version of Nightingales, the bimbotic show from the late 1980's. We could urge the show to pursue a more responsible vision of nursing, though it's pretty hard to imagine a project with this genesis doing no harm to nursing unless it stopped being about nurses completely. Maybe the producers could focus instead on one of the many categories of professionals who have not been plagued for decades by the idea that they are either sexy twits looking to seduce physicians, or else angels with big hearts and small brains. Cali Doc would be too easy; we're thinking Cali Judge, Cali Scientist, or even Cali TV Producer! More realistically, please join us in urging Studio Lambert to at least minimize how much it tells the public that nurses are brainless bimbos and/or angels. more...
Lystra Gretter: Public Health Advocate and Professional Reformer
By David Yates
When Lystra Eggert Gretter was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2004, she was honored for her "tireless" efforts in promoting nursing as a respectable profession in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gretter made many contributions to nursing. She shifted the model of nursing education from a one-year apprenticeship to a three-year academic pursuit. She created nurse-run hospital wards instead of allowing nursing students to run them. Gretter cut the work day to 8-hour shifts, to afford nurses and students more time to study and recreate. She wrote what is believed to be the first standardized textbook for nursing education and created one of the first professional nursing libraries. And Gretter was a founding member, at the end of the 19th Century, of groups that later became the American Nurses Association and the National League for Nursing Noting that the public perception of nursing was that of "women's work," Gretter lobbied for more political power, including aligning nursing with suffragettes who sought the vote. She established an early visiting nurses association. And Gretter was "the moving spirit behind the creation of the "The Florence Nightingale Pledge," an oath of ethics that many graduating nursing students still make today. Gretter also worked to advance public health generally. She established tuberculosis hospitals, lobbied for in-home nursing care and became a vocal public health advocate for Detroit's burgeoning poor and immigrant population. She also successfully introduced the first state-wide health inspections of school children and a free maternity/infant care clinic in Detroit. more...
Get the expanded and updated paperback edition of Saving Lives, with a new foreword by Echo Heron!
May 4, 2010 -- Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All at Risk was released today in paperback, with a new foreword by bestselling nurse author Echo Heron! This edition is revised and expanded, discussing Nurse Jackie and the other new nurse shows in detail, and featuring updated information throughout. You can get an author-signed copy of the book when you become a member of the Truth or renew your membership for $30 (click here!). Please help support the Truth's effort to change how the world thinks about nursing today.
This affordably-priced paperback edition (under $12 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble) makes a great Nurses Week gift for colleagues, students, or even to help family and friends understand the value of what nurses do. All royalties for the award-winning book go directly to support non-profit nursing advocacy work. Thank you for your support!
New Truth About Nursing FAQ:
Just how undervalued and underfunded is nursing?
In our new FAQ, we explore a few dramatic comparisons that illustrate how poorly nursing is valued and funded relative to medicine and other professions. See the comparisons...
In our imperfect state of conscience and enlightenment, publicity and the collision resulting from publicity are the best guardians of the interest of the sick.
-- Florence Nightingale
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Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All at Risk
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Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All at Risk
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