Contemporary Image of Professional Nursing

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Captain Maria Ines Ortiz, RN &
Captain Jennifer Moreno, RN

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 Early Definitions of Nursing

Nurse Biblical reference

 Latin word nutricius,  Found in the Talmud &
meaning nourishing Old Testament
 Wet nurse
Dictionary def. Gender Identification
 “A person educated and  Viewed primarily as a
trained to care for the profession for women
sick or disabled.”  Tied to role of women
(American Heritage, portray in society
2000)
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 Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing:
What It Is and What It Is Not

**Described the nurse’s role

as one that would:
“put the patient in the best
conditions for nature to act
upon him”

(Nightingale, 1859, p.79)

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 Nursing vs. Medicine:
Distinguishing Factors

Primary difference between nursing and medicine are

the:
purpose and goal of each profession
education needed to fulfill each role
Historically:
medicine as a profession for men
nursing as a profession for women
Subservient role of the nurse in relationship to the
physician in the past-often:
referred to as the “handmaiden” of the
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physician
 The Role of the Nurse in Patient
Care Today

In all environments
nurses play a KEY
ROLE in promoting
higher standards of
health.

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 Nursing vs. Medicine:
Distinguishing Factors….cont.

Medicine
diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Nursing
caring for the person in a variety of health-
related situations
Formation of a clear & concise definition
of nursing has been hampered by a:
lack of an obvious distinction between
nursing and medicine
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 Effect of Technology

Advanced technology in the health field has:

• changed the role of the RN
• Reshaped the method by which care is delivered

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 Nursing’s Image:
The In/Visibility of Nurses

The Many Faces of Nursing’s Image

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 Image of Nursing:
What Do We Mean?

• Nursing: evolving for 150 years

• Affected by the media
• Women’s issues & changing roles
• More technological & science driven
• Nurses are decision makers
• More male nurses & a push for minorities
• Nursing associations promote a more positive
image of nursing
• Restructuring of health care environments 12
 Nursing : Art & Literature

• Art
• Unrelated to the contemporary image of
nursing
• Literature
• Earliest references to nursing are in the Bible
and chronicle the action of two nurse midwives
in approximately 1900 BC

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 Images of Nursing through
History

 1844: Sairy Gamp

 1854: Nightingale in Crimea
 1857: Santa Filomena
 1915: Edith Cavell
 1936: White Angel
 1940: Nurse Rivers
 1942: So Proudly We Hailed
 1942: We Band of Angels
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 Images of Nursing through
History

 1972: Hot Lips Houlihan

 1975: Nurse Ratched
 1990: Vietnam War
Women’s Memorial
 1997: The English Patient
 1997: Golf Magazine
 2000: Meet the Parents
 2001: Pearl Harbor 15
THE VIETNAM WOMEN'S
MEMORIAL

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 Spirit of Nursing

• Statue in Arlington
National Cemetary
• Honors military nurses

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 Nursing Stereotypes:
Images that Underestimate the Profession

The three main stereotypes of the female

nurse:
 The Battle Axe
 The Ministering Angel
 The Naughty Nurse
According to Kalisch & Kalisch, another
main stereotype is the:
 The Doctor’s Handmaiden
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 The Battle Axe

Nurses portrayed as vicious and cruel

women.
Ex., One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest, 1975
• Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher)
• Man (Jack Nicholson) is sent to a
mental hospital and finds the head
nurse a lot more dangerous than the
other patients
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 The Ministering Angel

One of the most common types of

stereotypes of nurses portrayed in
the media.
• Female nurse closely related to what is
assumed an angel is:
• compliant, willing, caring & dedicated

Ex., The English Patient,1997. Love &

War, Paradise Road
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 The Naughty Nurse
Most insulting stereotype of female nurses
seen in the media.
Nurses portrayed as:
• Airheads and bimbos, clueless about
everything except satisfying the sexual
needs of men, use of petite women (not
all nurses are, nurses come in all shapes
and sizes), and sleazy dresser
Ex. Scrubs, Nightingales-90’s (dippy
nursing students seen as nubile sex
kittens)
The Center for Nursing Advocacy. (2006). Nursing image in the media. Retrieved August 21
26, 2006 from www.nursingadvocacy.org/news_alerts/2005/dec15.html
 Nursing in the Media: Negative
Portrayal

The Center for Nursing Advocacy. (2006). News on Nursing in the media. Retrieved
August 26, 2006 from www.nursingadvocacy.org/news_alerts/2005/dec15.html22
 The Doctor’s Handmaiden

This type of stereotype indicates that nurses are completely

reliant on doctors.

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 Nurses in Television & Motion
Pictures

Nurses:
• No major role in TV stories;
physician was the main focus
• “Handmaiden” to physician
• Positive image was based on
biographies of outstanding
nurses.
• Ex. Edith Cavell, WW I
heroine shot by the Germans
for helping allied soldiers
escape 24
 1940’s
War Times:
• Highest point for nursing and nurses image
in movies
• Army Nurse, War hero
• The Heroine Nursing: recognized as a true
professional
• Nurses depicted as: brave, humanistic,
rational, dedicated, decisive and
autonomous
• U. S. Cadet Nurse Corp, 1943-1948
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 1960’s

Nurses serving in Vietnam in all branches of

the armed forces.

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 1970’s

Image of nursing in movies hits a low point.

Nursing profession in film: denigrated and satirized

Nurses portrayed: malevolent, sadistic (ex., Nurse

Ratched, Nurse Diesel)

Nurses in film: lacked values, duty, self-sacrifice,

achievement, integrity virtue, intelligence
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 1970’s..cont.

Famous nurse in Hollywood:

• Hot Lips Houlihan, M*A*S*H,
portrayed by Loretta Swit

Margaret evolved from a sexy, one-

dimensional comic foil for Hawkeye and
Trapper John to a fully developed character
with one overriding passion: to be the best
nurse in Korea

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 1980’s

China Beach, 1988

• Excellent drama about nurses during the
Vietnam War
• Nurses-intelligent, assertive, caregivers,
competent. True pt. Advocates. Strong, yet Dana Delaney as
vulnerable Nurse Colleen
McMurphy

Soap Opera’s
• Became highly visible during the 80’s
• Ex., General Hospital- portrayed the nurses
as “standing around the desk all the time,”
no real involvement with patients. 29
 1990’s

ER, Chicago Hope

• Nurses depicted as
strong, assertive,
caring, involved,
heroic and
responsible decision-
makers

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 2000

• Grey’s Anatomy
• House
• ER

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 Nursing Millennial
• Millennial media
• The image of men in nursing
• Usually absent in the media
• Movies and television: Meet the Parents, ER,
Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, House, HawthoRNe
• Media campaigns for nursing
• Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) study of
20,000 articles published in newspapers,
magazines, and other health care publications
(1998) indicated that nurses were cited only 4%

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 Nurse in Print
Image of nurses in novels: female, single, childless,
white and younger than 35 yrs of age
70’s & 80’s novelists: ignored the nurse’s professional
motivations and health care perspectives
Nurse in romance novel: portrayed as a “pure” girl,
dressed in white, whose main goal was to marry a
doctor.
Newspapers and news magazine: depict a more
realistic portrayal of nurses. During war times, nurses
image in the media has always been viewed as
positive. Ex. Middle East, 1991, 9/11
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 Nurse in Print…

Three nurse stereotypes identified:

1. Nurse as a man’s companion
2. Nurse as a man’s destroyer
3. Nurse as a man’s mother or the mother of his
children
4. Nurse as “token torturer”-nurse image on get
well cards (Muff,1998)

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 Nurse in Print…cont.

1990’s: some improvement in the image of

nurses.

1997: study of nurses in the media conducted

by the University of Rochester, titled the
Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media:
Health Care’s Invisible Partner. The study
found that nurses are “virtually invisible
in media coverage of healthcare.”
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Image Makers of Nurses
 
 
Nurses
  of America Campaign
 
  Convey to public that RNs are expert
  clinicians
 
Johnson
  & Johnson’s Discover Nursing: The
 
Campaign
 
For Nursing’s Future
  To address the nursing shortage, J&J
 
  developed a nationwide campaign in support
  of the nursing. profession.
 
 
 
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 What the Public Believes about
Nursing

• RNs ranked highest among all professions

for the highest professional standards of
honesty and ethics
• *Remember….a consistently
misrepresented image can negatively affect
how the public views nurses

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 Nursing Shortage & Nursing’s
Image: Nursing Labor Market

• Shortfall trends have reversed over the

last decade because of nursing being a
more attractive career option
• Shortage less than expected because of
a surge of new nurses and nurses retiring
later
• Nurse Reinvestment Act funded at $20
million was signed into law August 2002
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 Factors Contributing to Nursing’s
Shortage

• Enrollments declining in nursing • Aging nursing workforce:

programs: limited number of avg. age of RNs in the
spaces in nursing programs U.S. 44-45

• High acuity of patients in • Job dissatisfaction: poor

hospitals retention of RNs due to
working conditions:
• Increased demand for nurses: mandatory OT, heavy
baby boomer generation getting workloads, high patient:
older, thus increasing the nurse ratio, lack of respect
demand and need for nurses
• Reduction in nursing
faculty
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 Believe in Nursing
• Value Nursing
• Attend meetings
• Identify yourself
• Promote the profession to others
• Be proud to be an RN

• Protect the title of “Nurse”

• Insist on being addressed as a

professional 41
 The Reality of the
Contemporary Staff Nurse (Cont.)

• Graduates are entering the profession at younger ages

• More than half of nurses practice in a hospital
• 40% of all health care professionals are RNs
• Approximately 11% of RNs are male
• American Assembly of Men in Nursing is dedicated to
positively influencing factors that affect men in nursing
• In a female-dominated profession, 41.1% of CRNAs are
male

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The End

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