Are nurses angel-faced, doctor’s maids or educated contributors to their patient’s health?
Timmy Turner is a 10 year old boy who wishes for a perfect life. His parents work full time and often neglect him for their own desires, but thanks to his fairy odd parents, Cosmo the idiot, and Wanda, Cosmo’s perfect-sweet wife, Timmy still manages to enjoy his life. Throughout the series Timmy goes on many adventures with Cosmo and Wanda. During some episodes Dr. Rip Studwell, the attractive but dimwitted fairy doctor makes appearances accompanied by nurses (“Fairly Odd Parents”). The show depicts the nurses as Dr. Rip’s glamourous entourage. They are very pretty women, they wear pink uniforms, and frequently giggle at all of Dr. Rip’s jokes. These nurses simply do as they are told, merely tending to the doctor instead of carrying out any major medical procedures. The show does not display nurses as educated, vital contributors to the
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patients’ health; rather, they only tend to the doctor. Fig 1: Dr.
Rip Studwell with his nurses (Nurses).
This diminishes the roles of nurses, making it seem as though they are unintelligible, angel-faced, doctor’s maids. Nurses are so much more than their looks. In fact, some may say doctors contribute to the degradation of nurses’ image. Doctors don’t recognize the nurses’ ability and responsibility to make equal contributions to care. Doctors have accepted the medical view that nurses are to make coffee and change the bed pan rather than make any imperative decisions that may contribute to the outcome of the patient, but this is wrong (“Professional Nursing: Concepts, Issues, and Challenges”).
Nurses do play a role that aid their patients. Nurses perform many physical examinations, provide health counseling, administer wound care and medications, interpret patient information and make critical decisions about necessary actions. This proves nurses do have important duties, in contrast to the show, where the nurses giggle at jokes and fulfill all the doctors’ personal needs (“What Nurses
Do”). In addition, when nurses fail to do their job, it shows a lack of knowledge in the field, depicting nurses to be unintelligible. Nurses are highly trained, educated employees of the hospital. They are educated in school, throughout job experience and continuously throughout their career. They are constantly being educated on the many changes in medicine and are actually more efficient than doctors in teaching basic life support skills to other nurses/ hospital employees (“Registered Nurse”). A study was conducted on 108 nurses, with no previous experience in BLS/ AED courses. The nurses were divided randomly into two groups. One group consisted of nurses being trained by doctors (Group A) and the other consisted of nurses being trained by experienced nurses (Group B). The trainees were put through a course, then evaluated after the completion of the course. The steps evaluated included safety, recognition of unresponsiveness, opening the airway and checking for breathing and signs of circulation for 10 seconds, recognition of cardiac arrest, calling for help, bringing the AED, electrode pad positioning, the time from activation of the device to initial AED analysis, delivering a shock safely, delivering technically correct compressions and inflations with the correct frequency and sequence until professional help arrived. The results showed that Group B, the nurses trained by experienced nurses, were more focused during their procedure, while the doctor-taught nurses, Group A, lacked systematic use of some hospital equipment, and techniques. Nurses in this study proved to be more efficient than doctors, by infusing the trainees with competent practice and skills that were dynamic, effective and adequate. This contrast with the roles on the show which don’t involve the nurses educating any other nurses or patients on important medical strategies (“Nurses are more efficient than doctors in teaching basic life support and automated external defibrillator in nurses”). Fig 2: Nursing who work in a hospital (HardCopy106). This animated show also contradicts with real nurses working in the field today. For example, Sophia Edwards, a registered nurse currently working for ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬Centers Plan for Healthy Living with a Bachelor’s degree in nursing. She has many years of field experience and is knowledgeable about hands-on-skills needed for this line of work and the duties that are performed daily (“Nurses are more efficient than doctors in teaching basic life support and automated external defibrillator in nurses”). Sophia says “While working in the hospital, I was a part of the transplant and medical surgery unit. Every day I had to administer medication, make head to toe assessments of patients, care for wounds and teach patients how to medicate and care for themselves after leaving the surgical unit.” She also mentions throughout her experience nursing, she had to undergo continuous learning of how to use new equipment and conduct new medical procedures, “because medicine is always changing” Sophia proclaimed. Next I asked her about any incorrect stereotypes about nursing, shown in the media today. She immediately mentions how nurses are always depicted as women which, is in direct comparison to this show. Obviously there is no doubt that there are far more female nurses than there are male in the nursing career. When entering a hospital or doctor’s office a common sight would be of a female nurse donned in a pale blue nurse’s smock, strolling the halls, attending to a variety of ill patients. What about men? How often do we see the same number of men wearing the same uniform, performing the same tasks? Almost never, but, times have changed from a fairly recent analysis from 2011 where 9.6 percent of all the registered nurses in the country were men, a dramatic change from a measly 2.7 percent that was noted in 1970 (“Men in Nursing Entering a Predominantly Female Career Field”). Due to a relaxation in gender roles, men have been given more of a chance to become nurses, suggesting change in a predominantly female career but still, the overall idea of nursing is discredited on television due to the ill treatment from doctors, gender stereotyping, lack of appreciation and this animated show. This show depicts nursing in a negative light, showing them as unintelligible women, which they are not. These nurses are intensely trained for their career and are continuously educated throughout job experience. They actually may be more skilled in teaching certain topics than doctors, as I mention previously in the study on BLS/AED training. Moreover, nurses do have a vital role in aiding a patient’s recovery such as, administering medication and making critical decisions. Nurses are also known to mainly be women, which is publicized on this show but society displays an evolution in this matter, because of an increase of male nurses in the country over the last few decades, this may be small but, still a change.
Nurses have long been known for their attention to patient care. The reason many nurses have entered this profession is due to their desire to care for people. The overwhelming responsibilities of documentation, chart reviews, verifying orders and medications, monitoring lab results, among others, leaves the direct care of the patient to another, possibly unqualified, staff member. Bolton, Gassert, and Cipriano (2008) estimate that a mere 23-30% of a nurse’s day is spent providing care to a patient. This leaves the greater part of a 12-hour shift performing some kind of paperwork. In fact, the inability to provide more patient care has been cited as a reason many nurses leave their job, and the profession altogether (Bolton et al., 2008).
Gordon makes a great argument about doctor and nurse relationship. She states that in fact “many doctors still consider nurses to be their handmaidens,” although they are supposed to work together as a te...
Angelou once said, “The people may forget the nurses name, but they will never forget how that nurse made them feel.” Nursing is a profession. Unfortunately, nursing does not always get the credit it deserves because of these stereotypes. Nursing is not a gay profession for males. Due to the shortage of nurses, our society needs more nurses now than never. Nurses make a difference in almost every person’s lives just not in hospital rooms but also in schools and clinics. Nursing in not easy job but somebody has to do it. There has to those individuals who must take on this challenge and be the difference in someone’s life. People could not care if someone considers them a failure for being a nurse and not a doctor. Most doctors could not do their job effectively without the help and assistance of nurses. The money is there for those who think nurses does not get paid that much. Healthcare is one of the biggest factors in our world, and for our world to progress further, an increase in employment for nursing is necessary. These stereotypes should not and will not stop the field of nursing from
A nurse, however, does not view her profession dispassionately. It is too much a part of her.”
However, the current movement of the field of nursing and the existing nurse-patient relationship both work to reveal that the nurse does hold significant job power. The implications of this power signify that the nurse has the ability to make changes related to overall health care, as well as more specific changes involving patient care (Marquis & Huston, 2014). Consequently, this power succeeds in adding to the image and overall appeal of the profession. The power that nurses have can only be described as a positive or constructive form of power that ultimately is essential for expanding and promoting the
There have been many stereotypes and wrongful perceptions about nurses and has grown over the years. Nurses in the public eye are viewed mostly as females who help and comfort those in need. Nurses in the public eye are female who are often viewed as sex symbols or objects. Nurses are also viewed as inferior or invisible when compared to the doctor who is often times viewed as a man. The media has made people view nurses as a female who is young, hot, and is often below and follows the orders of a handsome smart male doctor. A perfect example of the way the media portrays a nurse is the picture from above. This picture is from this year’s Halloween ad from the store called Party City. This paper will go more in depth about how this image is wrongful in today’s society and how the public image of nursing has to change.
These changes pertain to every position held in the medical field, including nurses. As doctors’ duty is to become well informed of the constant changes, it is just as important for nursing staff to evolve as well. Most people do not realize the very valuable role a nurse plays in the process of treating a patient. Actually, some would say that nurses are more valuable than the doctors’. It is the nurse that gives the direct patient care by working with patients to monitor, evaluate, and implement their best judgment regarding the patients care.
Jacquelyn Bishop makes a good point that on most of these shows “ a team compose entirely of physicians would rove the hospital providing all significant care to desperately ill patients, as the few nurses and other professionals stand silently in the background or simply disappear”. She goes on to state, “The invisibility of nurses on hospital dramas sends the wrong message to viewers. The public may see nurses as unnecessary, uneducated and under the rule of physicians, when in reality nurses are autonomous and essential to the success of any hospital.” (Bishop,
Although most nurses do not get enough recognition in medical environments, nurses often do the same tasks as physicians. Even though becoming a doctor requires more education, nurses are the staple of American medicine. From Florence Nightingale to present day, nurses continue to build relationships and provide care for a wide variety of patients. There are differing views regarding the importance of nurses, but I believe they are just as important as physicians and can make just as much of an impact as any other medical provider.
The job of a professional nurse today is one that requires high intellect, accountability, expertise, selflessness, dedication, and a compassionate heart to help those who are hurting. In past years, nursing has been regarded as a job and not a profession. Today, professional nurses assume the vital responsibility of upholding the moral and ethical principles of nursing in order to better advocate and care for their patients. These principles include autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, fidelity, justice, and veracity (Zerwekh and Garneau 2015, 423). Nurses today work autonomously to assist patient and write appropriate care plans, mentor student nurses, and facilitate communication between families, patients,
The field of nursing provides one the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. Nurses interact directly with patients at times of hardship, vulnerability, and loss. The nursing profession has been around for decades. Due to the contribution from historical leaders in nursing, the nurse’s role has progressed over time. Although the roles of nurses have evolved throughout the years, one thing has remained the same: the purpose in giving the best patient care.
Nurses work alongside doctors to ensure the well-being of all patients. They work diligently to provide restoration of the client’s healthcare abilities. While researching, I found on Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook that registered nurses perform various of duties. They assess patient’s conditions, record patient medical history and symptoms, observe patients and record observations, administer medicines and treatments, set up and coordinate plans or patients, consult and collaborate with healthcare professionals, operate and monitor medical equipment, help perform diagnostic tests and analyze the results, teach
Nursing has encountered many obstacles over time that caused it to transform into the dynamic profession it is today. The challenging work a nurse shoulders requires an in depth education on matters pertaining to biology as well as learning social skills, which prove to play a crucial role throughout their career. Nurses must have an adept capacity for empathy and compassion and must be able to establish personable relationships with patients on a daily basis. Public perception of nursing is often ignorant of the many duties and roles
It requires caring people to devote themselves to provide proper care to others while being subjected to workplace hazards, extended working hours, and disrespect from patients and personnel. Reflecting historically on how the media has misconstrued the nursing profession helps develop the argument that there is a lack of respect among society for the nursing profession. Nursing was once not seen as a profession, but as a task delegated to those seen as unfit to perform in any other areas. It was a servant’s position that required little training and few, if any, compensation (Thomas & Richardson 2016). These early perceptions of the nursing field possibly influenced the improper portrayals of nurses in novels, television, and movies in the early 1970s. During this time nurses were not portrayed as health professionals or seen as important members of the healthcare team; rather, they were portrayed as unintelligent and promiscuous subordinates to the doctor (Price & McGillis Hall 2014). Present day, nurses are still seen as inferior to doctors despite their growing presence as advanced providers in the positions of nurse practitioner and nurse
Nurses play a huge role in the health care system. A nurse is a bridge between doctor and patient. s/he is a compassionate, understanding and nonjudgmental yet firm and grounded. S/he is probably one of the most important yet least appreciated person in a patient’s life. When many think of a nurse they probably recognize them by a white hat and uniform. Today those white uniforms have been replaced with vividly colored scrubs worn by both male and female nurses, and many other employees in healthcare. Nurses are not just the people that are limited to bedside care and drug administration; they are highly skilled and well-educated nursing professionals.