Real Life Nurses...Not Reality TV Nurses

I don’t watch a lot of television, but I’m always interested in viewing programs that feature nurses in key roles. Unfortunately for our profession, nurses are almost always cast in an unfavorable light, either as lovelorn incompetents, physicians’ handmaidens, or mean Nurse Ratcheds. So far this TV season has been no different and I feel I need to speak out against the way nurses are stereotyped on TV. If you know a nurse you know these images are far from true…and oft times insulting.

You don’t see it on TV, but before a Registered Nurse begins to practice they spend years in college gaining the classroom and clinical skills needed to be able to deliver quality, safe patient care. Once they graduate from their nursing program, they must pass a comprehensive exam to obtain their license to practice…and believe me, it is not something you can prepare for by standing around chatting about your love life…like they do on TV.

Professional nursing is most assuredly a science, but it is also an art. Nurses care for the whole person and know that what we do not only impacts the individual patient but their family and community, and it is not just in thirty minute or one hour segments like it is on TV. It is a 24/7 profession, and to borrow an old phrase, a nurse’s work is never done. Professional nurses work in a variety of disciplines and settings, and then specialize even further. For example, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Nurses have specialized knowledge and training and care for our tiniest and most vulnerable patients. And they don’t just care for their tiny patients, they also provide care and support for the whole family. They listen and provide encouragement daily for worried family members as they sit by the incubators of their precious babies. They teach those families how to care for their babies when they are discharged, and how to keep them safe.

Here is an example of the wholistic approach of nursing. If one of those vulnerable babies were to get the flu, it could cause very serious problems for them. To help decrease that risk, the NICU nurses came up with the idea of providing free flu shots to families while they are visiting their babies. By providing immunizations to the families, they decrease the risk of exposure for the babies in the nursery, and in the community. Mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, don’t have to leave the NICU to find a provider for their immunization and don’t have to add more expense or worry to a difficult situation.

Giving out free flu shots may not have enough romance or drama for TV network executives, but to a worried mom or dad whose baby is in NICU, it is a “true life” story worthy of “reality TV”.

- Devonna McNeil, RN, MS
Nurse Educator