"Italian nurses are better-looking...These [U.S.] ones scare me a bit."

News on Nursing in the Media

December 2006 -- After five months of behind-the-scenes effort, we have persuaded Colorado beer maker Coors to stop using "naughty nurse" imagery as part of its "Coors Light Trauma Tour." We thank the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, especially member Laurie Spooner, for their help in this effort. The Trauma Tour has been an ongoing marketing campaign that included television and other advertising, as well as sponsorship of extreme sports events and promotional events at clubs and bars. It seems to be focused on Canada. The nursing component featured models dressed in "naughty nurse" outfits, and some publicity actually used the term "naughty nurse." The hook seemed to be that the "nurses"' will not only help the young male target demographic through the rigors of risky sports, but also cause a little "trauma" of their own by interacting closely with the guys. Because the "naughty nurse" stereotype reinforces the undervaluation and gender segregation of nursing, which in turn fuels the real "trauma" of the nursing shortage, we have urged Coors to leave nurses out of their marketing. The US headquarters was actually very responsive to our concerns, citing evidence that they vowed to no longer use naughty nurse imagery after our successful campaign to end their naughty nurse Zima commercial that aired in 2002. The US headquarters worked with us to convince the more reluctant Canadian division to cease the naughty nurse imagery in the Coors Light Trauma Tour. more...

Who are you?

October 6, 2006 -- Today Newsweek posted a web exclusive by Anne Underwood headlined "'CSI' Nursing." The piece gives a short introduction to forensic nursing, followed by an interview with New Jersey sexual assault forensic nurse Beryl Skog. The "CSI" hook is understandable, though ironic, since that CBS show is among the many Hollywood products that tend to ignore or denigrate the contributions of nurses. In general, Underwood's piece is a thoughtful look at skilled forensic nursing. She gives Skog a good deal of space to explain how she cares for sexual assault victims and gathers vital evidence for criminal prosecutions. We thank Underwood and Newsweek. more...

"Yo! Here's Another No-Brainer Thing We Can Do to End the Nursing Shortage."

October 5, 2006 -- Over the last few weeks, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky has run at least three strong pieces about safe staffing and overtime disputes at Temple University Hospital. In describing labor negotiations between the hospital and its nurses, Polaneczky argues that nurses should get the staffing levels they need, as well as limits on forced overtime. She says such measures would improve patient safety and address key factors in the nursing shortage, potentially bringing many nurses back to the bedside. In making these points, she explains, using specific examples, how nurses keep patients alive--if they have the time and energy. We commend Polaneczky for keeping the focus on issues that are critical to the wellbeing of bedside nurses and their patients. more...

Manifesto

September 20, 2006 -- Today the News Wales site posted an article about a policy "manifesto" issued by the Royal College of Nursing in Wales in advance of next year's Welsh legislative elections. The attention-grabbing headline is "Wales boozing worries nurses," but the manifesto covers a wide range of key health "demands." These include a large increase in the number of school nurses, expanding nursing responsibilities in community care, improvements in emergency care, and measures to improve nursing recruitment and retention. The unsigned piece has good quotes from the RCN Wales director, and it appears to be essentially a description of the RCN's press release. So it might have benefited from some outside comment on the extent to which the manifesto is politically feasible. But it is clearly an example of strong advocacy for nurses and their patients. more...

"Iraq: Neglected nurses fight their own war"

November 19, 2006 -- Today the IRIN news service (an affiliate of Reuters) posted a good piece about the severe hardship Iraqi nurses face. The unsigned article focuses on the struggle of nurse Nissrin Muhammad to care for patients--150 or more at a time--at a public hospital in Baghdad. The widowed mother of five works six days a week, 13 hours a day, enduring physical and verbal abuse in desperate conditions. She can no longer afford meat, but she no longer wants to eat it anyway; it reminds her too much of the relentless carnage she sees as a result of sectarian violence. The piece says many Iraqi nurses have fled the nation; those with working husbands stay home to avoid the violence. There are good quotes from a Ministry of Health physician, who stresses that physicians cannot function without the nurses, and that "[l]osing their work means losing lives." The piece might have provided more information on Iraqi nursing generally, both before and after the war. But overall it's a powerful look at a profession in crisis. more...

Spurring Grassroots Action

Recently, the Center launched its new chapters. We now have six U.S. chapters and three in Canada, with more on the way. These chapters will extend our reach into the global community. With more funding, we hope to hire staff to better support and coordinate the chapters.

Why Does It Matter Whether People Understand Nursing?

Nurses are the critical front-line caregivers in health care today. They often make the difference between life and death, self-sufficiency and dependency, hope and despair. You know this! But too many people don't. And that is a factor in the global nursing shortage that has claimed countless lives and threatens to overwhelm our health systems.

Nurses around the world now struggle with short-staffing that kills patients and drives colleagues from the profession. Nursing education is severely underfunded. In the U.S., 150,000 reportedly qualified applicants could not get into nursing school last year. Nursing researchers struggle to find funding for their vital work.

Why is this? One key reason is that few non-nurses, including many of our health care colleagues, really understand what nurses do. This vacuum of knowledge is filled by long-standing social assumptions that are fostered and reinforced by the media.

Research shows that the media has a real effect on the public's health care views and actions. But the media commonly misrepresents nursing, often relying on stereotypes instead of reality. Countless influential health pieces in the news media continue to ignore nursing, or suggest that it consists of menial assistance to physicians.

Meanwhile, entertainment media products tell millions around the world that nurses don't matter. In Hollywood, 28 out of 30 major characters in the top four hospital shows are physicians. Only two characters are nurses. The physician characters spend a great deal of their time doing--and getting credit for--important work that nurses do in real life.

The bottom line: if nursing is seen as lowly "women's work" that's all about getting equipment for physicians and bestowing favors, there is little reason to provide it with many resources, especially in today's severely stressed health financing systems.

The Center's Vision

To help us move toward a world where society really respects nursing--and allocates its resources accordingly--the Center must be able to shape media portrayals in a more proactive and broad-based way. We must do more to:

train and work with those who create media portrayals;
educate the public in more direct and innovative ways;
encourage the media to use nurses as expert sources and advisors;
encourage nurses to create media and speak up about their work.

Help Us

Because of the lack of overall understanding worldwide, nurses must sustain a collective effort to shape media portrayals of their work. We must educate society in order to obtain more social, political and financial support. As Florence Nightingale once said:

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.

The Center's global media monitoring, analysis and advocacy is a huge challenge. It takes extensive research, writing, communication, and Internet efforts. We must pay for office equipment, supplies, transportation, Internet products, insurance, postage and telephone costs. Our office is donated by our staff. And our staff can undertake only a small part of the work that needs to be done to improve nursing's image.

So we urge you to make a year-end donation to help us continue and expand our work. Just click here to learn about the great gifts you can receive for joining or renewing your Center membership, including our cool t-shirts and the Archie McPhee nurse action figure! It's quick and easy! And because the Center is a 501(c)(3) charity, your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.

Thank you for all of your support over the past year. You are the reason we've had a real impact on public understanding of nursing worldwide. Together, we can strengthen nursing, and give patients the kind of health care they deserve in 2007 and beyond!

Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
Executive Director
The Center for Nursing Advocacy
203 Churchwardens Rd.
Baltimore, MD USA 21212-2937
office 1-410-323-1100
fax 1-410-510-1790
ssummers@truthaboutnursing.org