Portrayals of nurses in television series on the rise
As medical dramas such as Grey’s Anatomy, ER, and HOUSE conclude for the season, a new breed of medical programs are beginning to fill their slots on television. For years, the public has witnessed love affairs, drama, and cliff hangers on existing medical shows, giving the public a false understanding of what nurses really do. These series “make people think that nursing doesn’t take much skill, and that nursing is mostly about getting stuff for physicians,” says Sandy Summers, author of Saving Lives: Why the Media’s Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All At Risk, in the St. Petersburg Times.
The recent airing of two new nursing shows—Nurse Jackie on Showtime and HawthoRNe on TNT—may begin to change the publics’ opinion of nurses. Although there is still drama, for example, Nurse Jackie is addicted to pain killers; these two new shows portray a very different role for nurses than has been shown on television before. For instance, both television shows feature a rookie nurse nearly overwhelmed by the job, and both show nurses dealing with clueless and arrogant physicians, which are a dramatic change from medical shows, like Grey’s Anatomy, that have nurses vying for the heart of the head of surgery while involved in love triangles.
Another factor that has many hoping HawthoRNe will help nurses’ reputation is that Hawthorne’s executive director, Glen Mazzara, worked as a hospital administrator for 13 years. “It’s time to humanize these characters (in medical dramas), and the best way to do that is through the nurses,” Mazzara tells the St. Petersburg Times.
As nurses begin to have a more prominent role in medical drama, what is your take on how nurses are being portrayed in television series? Do you think this affects how nurses are treated and viewed by the public? Do you agree with Mazzara’s statement?
About the Author: Sarah is an Editorial Assistant in the patient safety group at HCPro, Inc. She contributes to two monthly newsletters; Briefings on the Joint Commission and Briefings on Patient Safety, and manages four e-zines; Accreditation Connection, AHAP Staff Challenge, Nurse Manager Weekly, and Healthcare Training Weekly. She also helps research new products for the patient safety and nursing market. She graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2008 where she earned her bachelor's degree in English.
