A strong 2018 item in The Economist discussed the stereotypes that still deter men from nursing, even at a time of critical global shortage. And an NPR report from a few months later offered valuable social science insights that the problem has roots in pervasive male anxiety about manhood. But then the piece seemed to recommend a “real men” approach to nursing recruitment that would reinforce the same regressive gender stereotypes.
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The show began airing in the U.S. in December 2020. It has five main characters, and all are new hospital nurses. Each one shows real health knowledge and operates with some autonomy—but not when physicians are present. And without an expert, authoritative major nurse character, Nurses seems to be a missed opportunity.
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Since mid-2020, Boston nurse practitioner Christina Kim has been posting strong refutations of Covid misinformation on TikTok, as reported in a good Wired piece in September. Kim’s video style is comic, hyper-articulate, and at times brutal; it may not be for everyone. But her TikTok account presents an image of a practicing nurse as a fiercely intelligent, authoritative, and compelling public health advocate.
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As 2020 ends, coverage of nursing in Covid care still depends on who is involved. A recent NBC News piece offered a good quick look at the travel nurses who are trying to cope with the current U.S. surge. In a BBC Newshour report, an NYU physician forcefully affirmed the key role skilled nurses play, especially in ICUs. Yet a long New York Times article on a shortage of “specialists” to run ventilators excluded nurses. And one governor had to defend his health commissioner, an RN, from an MSNBC anchor’s suggestion that an “upgrade” to a physician was needed.
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In October 2020 CNN reported on a widely-shared TikTok video in which nurse Cristina Hops expressed outrage at a tweet by Donald Trump urging people not to “be afraid of Covid.” Hops argued that the tweet undermined the efforts of health workers to get the public to take the deadly disease seriously. That is strong patient advocacy.
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The fourth season of the hospital drama, which aired in summer 2017, still included the competent emergency nurse Kenny. But as always, every other major character was a physician. And even more than in the past, the show portrayed nurses as mere assistants to the physicians, with limited skills and no autonomy—especially in an egregious plotline in which a seemingly gifted nurse turned out to be a physician.
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A September 2018 piece in the Post says a new program in which nurses triage 911 calls has helped some patients get better access to care, although it has not yet greatly reduced needless ambulance trips. Sadly, despite plenty of commentary from D.C. emergency services personnel, the piece fails to quote or even name a single nurse.
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In October 2020 VICE reported that after a Korean health union complained, YG Entertainment agreed to remove several images in the video for BLACKPINK’s “Lovesick Girls” in which group member Jennie had appeared in a quasi-naughty nurse outfit. The images could have been worse, but as the union rightly noted, sexual abuse remains a serious problem for modern nurses.
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Netflix’s School Nurse Files presents a nurse as quirky paranormal protector As part of Netflix’s apparent effort to present nurse characters who are as different from each other as possible, school nurse…
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The July 2020 issue honored those on the “new front line.” One cover featured a midwife. And inside, that nurse advocated for more NHS funding. But nurses are not the “new” front line—they have been saving lives for a long time! Yet the editor’s essay did not group them with physicians, the recognized health experts, but with workers who are not in health care at all.
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Netflix romantic drama Virgin River features skilled advanced practice nurse The new series features APRN Melinda Monroe, who flees L.A. to join the solo practice of a senior physician in northern California….
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Recent press items highlight the violence U.S. hospital nurses face today The Atlantic posted a piece in December 2016 on the growing threats from nurses’ patients, and the inadequate support from legislators…
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Nursing will be back to prime time. The big news is Netflix’s release of Ratched, but the streaming giant will also offer more of the actually-pretty-good portrayal of nursing on romantic drama Virgin River. And it seems there will always be the BBC’s Call the Midwife, with its strong portrayals of nursing. But on the new show Transplant, about a refugee trauma physician, nurses are peripheral helpers. And otherwise, the landscape will be dominated by other physician-centric dramas, ranging from Chicago Med, which has several skilled nurses, to Grey’s Anatomy, which never has.
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An engaging Vox video argues that men should overcome regressive gender notions and enter nursing, which it calls the “robot-proof” “job of the future.” But the video itself reinforces the gendered angel stereotype that nursing is all about “caring and empathy,” ignoring the advanced scientific skills and critical judgments that modern nursing requires.
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Jason Silverstein posted a strong report showing that the widespread understaffing of U.S. nurses costs lives and burns out nurses. Commendably, the piece relied solely on nursing scholars and nursing research to make its points. It might have also explained how nurses save lives and addressed potential solutions to the problem.
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Creator Ryan Murphy describes the new show, about the iconic battle-axe nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as “an imagining of how this monster was created.” We have long feared the series will reinforce the harmful stereotyping of the original, which linked female nursing authority with malevolence. Will Ratched give viewers a sense that nurses are anything more than disturbed clinical abusers?
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After a June 2020 piece in the Baltimore Sun marvels at medical students providing holistic care to Covid patients, a local nurse explains that this extraordinary care innovation has actually been at the core…
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NY Post: Covid nurse suspended for wearing little beneath clear gown Post pieces reported that a Russian nurse had been suspended for wearing only her underwear, or maybe it was a swimsuit, under her…
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U.K. street artist’s Covid-19 tribute presents nurse as superhero A new Banksy work hangs in a hospital in southern England. It pays tribute to NHS staff by showing a boy playing with…
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Press items report deadly nursing shortage on both sides of the Atlantic A study of European hospitals shows that missed care due to nurse understaffing has increased death rates, according to an…
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