Nurses in the Media

I am regularly sent, via e-mail, postings from The Center for Nursing Advocacy (TCNA). TCNA acts as a media watchdog, on the lookout for inaccurate portrayals of nurses in all areas of media, particularly television.

TCNA wants to stamp out the media’s misrepresentation of nurses and the nursing profession by rattling more than a few entertainment industry cages.

Infractions are detailed on TCNA’s Web site, along with a form letter that lists the offensive comments and characterizations in a specific show. TCNA urges nurses to send letters of complaint, written in their own words, to the producers of the offending programs. But, in cases of writer’s block or time constraints, we can just click a button and, whoosh!, TCNA’s well researched and articulate letter, with our name affixed, finds its way to Hollywood. I’ve used the convenient click-the-button correspondence on a number of occasions.

I’m appreciative of TCNA’s mission and efforts. I agree that there are too many portrayals of nurses that are inaccurate and sometimes sexist and offensive. Comedy programs often turn female nurses into caricatures. Nurses in micro-mini uniforms that show enough cleavage to stir envy in Pamela Anderson, and wearing white fishnet stockings and high heels, may exist in the writers’ far-out dreams. I, however, have never seen in any hospital anywhere a nurse dressed like that doing chest compressions or a gastric lavage. I’ve never seen a real-life nurse dressed like that, period. No one has. Listen up, Hollywood. Rein in your erotic fantasies and give nurses the respect we’ve earned and deserve. And, while you're at it, I'd like to see male nurses given a share of the TV/movie spotlight, specifically showcased as the highly educated, capable, life saving professionals they are--not a standing-in-the-background fixture poised to fetch whatever for the doctor.

Note to TCNA: don’t get too nitpicky. A recent letter to Gray’s Anatomy went on for some length, starting with blatant missteps, then moving on to a long list of, in my opinion, obscure offenses. Creative minds likely have short attention spans. Their interest in reading interminable criticisms of a single show is bound to wane. Slay the bigger, more obvious issues and the little ones will become collateral casualties.