Public and Media Perception of Nurses

Perceptions of Nurses Public and Media Perceptions of Nurses

Describe some positive and negative interactions you have had with people when you tell them that you are going to school to become a professional nurse. Discuss your perspective on how nurses are perceived in the media and by the public.

Most of the time, when I tell people I am a nurse or I am going to be a nurse, their reactions are overwhelmingly positive. Some people even tell me about how their lives were changed by a very special nurse who helped guide a family member through a difficult illness. Other people have said that it is nurses, more so than doctors, who are willing to take the time to talk to patients and explain how to cope with taking care of a sick parent or child. "I could never be around sick people day after day -- you must be a very special person, to be able to be a nurse."

Occasionally, people will remark that nursing is a good career, because it is perceived that it is easy to get a job upon graduation. Sometimes they will remark how much money nurses make, and there is an implication that nursing is a relatively easy career alternative in a difficult economy. The implication is that I am making a 'safe' rather than a creative choice, although choosing such a potentially stressful as well as a rewarding career hardly seems like an 'easy way out.'

The most negative perceptions I encounter are people who ask why I do not choose to be a doctor, rather than a nurse, given my intelligence, or point out the much-publicized negative aspects of nursing, such as the long hours and over-burdening of nurses at understaffed hospitals. Although I have obviously taken such factors under consideration and feel secure that the profession of nursing is for me, I am glad that people do understand that nursing is a difficult occupation. However, I do think that more could be done, by both nurses and the media, to emphasize the unique nature of the nursing profession. A nurse is not merely a subordinate doctor, but has a unique role to play in acting as a patient's advocate, and tending to the patient's physical, psychological, social, environmental, and cultural needs. While many people say that they support and have positive feelings about nurses, I am not sure that everyone truly understands what 'nursing' is: this suspicion is supported by the fact that many times people are confused as to who is a physician's assistant and who is a nurse in a hospital environment.

In the past, I believe that nurses have often been misrepresented in the media. Long ago, nurses were often portrayed as attractive, sexually available companions for doctors; as helpers rather than as partners in treatment, or worse as dominating figures with little sympathy or interest in real patient care. Even today, certain media stereotypes are difficult to eradicate. For example, the stereotype that most nurses are female is parodied in the popular film Meet the Parents, in which the groom's profession as a nurse is portrayed as emasculating, feminizing, and embarrassing for the character, in the eyes of his father-in-law.