Chapter 2
The Contemporary
Image of Professional Nursing
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Images of Nursing
Magazines
 Television
 Movies

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The Nursing Shortage
Employment rate projected to increase by 36%;
projected to grow faster than all occupations
until 2010
 By 2020, the U.S. is projected to need
1,016,900 more RNs than will be available.
 Number of foreign graduates is small.
 Strategies to entice retired nurses back into
practice will produce little, because 83% of
licensed nurses are in practice.

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The Nursing Shortage

Nurse Reinvestment Act funded at $20 million
was signed into law August 2002.

Nursing scholarships
 Public service announcements
 Faculty loan cancellation programs
 Geriatric training grants
 Nurse retention and enhancement grants
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Nursing in Art and Literature

Antiquity’s 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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Nursing in Art and Literature

Victorian image of nursing
 Literature
• Charles Dickens’ portrayal of Sairy Gamp, the drunken,
physically unkempt, and uncaring nurse who used nursing to
profit from the sick and dying
• Henry Longfellow’s portrayal of Florence Nightingale as
heroine
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Nursing in Art and Literature
 Florence
Nightingale
• Created a positive image for nursing
• Her success in improving the health of British soldiers
against overwhelming medical obstacles was the beginning
of modern nursing.
• One of the early users of statistics; developed the pie chart
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Nursing in Art and Literature

Early 20th century nursing

Art—Opportunities offered to nurses by war captured
the attention of artists and portrayed nurses as
dedicated, heroic, and caring.
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Nursing in Art and Literature

The 1930s—the nurse as angel of mercy

Media images and art—Radio programs, movies, and
sculpture portrayed nurses as dedicated, intelligent,
brave, and compassionate and portrayed nursing as
a holy vocation.
 In 1936, Warner Brothers’ movie The White Angel
chronicled the professional life of Nightingale; it was
endorsed by ANA in 1992.
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Nursing in Art and Literature

The 1940s—nurse as heroine

Nurses were commemorated as war heroes through
movies, stamps, and the naming of a U.S. Navy
destroyer for a Navy nurse, the USS Higbee.
 After significant contributions during WWII, nurses
found low salaries and poor working conditions at
home.
 Glamorized in romance novels such as Cherry Ames
and Sue Barton series
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Nursing in Art and Literature

Nursing in the anti-Establishment era of the
1960s

Media images and art
• Television shows—nurse as a background figure to
physicians
• Movies—nurse as a power figure who cruelly punished
patients
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Nursing in Art and Literature

In reality, nurses were making significant
contributions to health care.
• Served at the forefront of public health initiatives
• Central figures in the development of coronary care units and
the performance of hemodialysis
• First nurse practitioner programs began.
• A U.S. Bureau of Labor study indicated that salaries of nurses
were woefully inadequate in comparison with other, far less
trained American workers.
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Nursing in Art and Literature

Nursing in the sexual revolution of the 1970s
• Media portrayed nurses negatively—uncaring nurse in
M*A*S*H
• One positive image was the commemorative stamp of Clara
Maas, who died after deliberately obtaining two carrier
mosquito bites, so she could continue providing care to
soldiers with yellow fever during the Spanish-American War.
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Nursing in Art and Literature

Nursing in the 1980s and 1990s

Media images
• Movies portrayed nurses as nonjudgmental, caring,
knowledgeable, and heroic—Miss Evers’ Boys, The English
Patient, Love and War, Paradise Road.
• Advertisements portrayed nurses as sex objects.

Artistic portrayals of nursing focused on caring
• Vietnam War Women’s Memorial
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Nursing in Art and Literature

Millennial media
 The image of men in nursing
• Usually absent in the media
• Movies and television—Meet the Parents, ER, Gray’s
Anatomy, Scrubs

Media campaigns for nursing
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Nursing in Art and Literature
• 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%
of the time.
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Nursing’s Response
•
•
•
•
NSNA Image of Nursing Program
Center for Nursing Advocacy
Nurses for a Healthier Tomorrow
Campaign for Nursing’s Future—Johnson and Johnson; $30
million
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Nursing’s Response
• Nurses of America Campaign—A 1990 campaign
implemented by the Tri-Council with funding from the Pew
Foundation, which was designed to
 Convey to the public that nurses are expert practitioners who are
able to interpret technical data and coordinate and negotiate
health care
 Make nurses aware of the invisibility of nursing in the news
media
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The Enduring Public
Concern With Nursing

What the public believes about nursing:


Gallup polls ranked nurses first for having honesty
and ethics.
2001 World Trade Center attacks resulted in the
public viewing firemen and nurses as heroes.
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The Reality of the
Contemporary Staff Nurse

Reality




Modern health care institutions exist to deliver
nursing care.
The public highly values the profession.
Nursing’s heroic and noble public image is etched in
stone, glass, and canvas.
Nurses have a high sense of satisfaction with their
profession.
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The Reality of the
Contemporary Staff Nurse






New graduates are entering the profession at younger
ages.
More than half of nurses practice in the hospital.
40% of all health care professionals are RNs.
The American Assembly of Men in Nursing is dedicated
to positively influencing factors that affect men in
nursing.
In a female-dominated profession, 49% of CRNAs are
male.
Nurses of color are most likely to attain graduate
degrees.
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The Reality of the
Contemporary Staff Nurse

Clash between beliefs and reality



Health care institutions market nurses as caring,
individualistic, and holistic, yet nurses are unable to
meet patient expectations because of inadequate
staffing and resources.
If nurses are patient advocates, they should have
the power to fix the system.
Significant mismatch between what nurses
understand about health care reform and what is
actually happening
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Changing Nurse-Physician
Interactions

Understanding the mysteries of medicine

In exchange for hospital privileges, physicians agree to
abide by a set of medical staff bylaws that include a
disciplinary process.
 Nurses who work with a physician whose practice is
substandard may wrongly believe that the problem is a
nursing problem; in reality, the problem must be
addressed through medical staff bylaws.
 Communication is an ongoing problem for nurses and
physicians; both disciplines need to be respectful of these
issues.
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Why Is This Happening?

The look of nursing

Nurses engage in numerous self-sabotage activities
• Inappropriate dress
• Inking and tattoos
• Deferential positioning in meetings and during collaborative
activities
• Wearing of nursing uniforms in public places
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Creating a New Image

On a positive note


Nurses should tell everyone what nurses do well and
should keep disagreements in-house.
Nurses should think carefully before disagreeing with
each other and should conserve energy for
important issues.
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Creating a New Image

Creating a new image




Value nursing; project it daily
Nurses should take themselves seriously and dress
the part.
Recognize the benefit of membership in the
American Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau
International, National League for Nursing, and
specialty organizations.
Portray the profession positively.
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Creating a New Image

Take the role seriously and dress the part.
 Be highly visible to patients, families, and
physicians.
 Make negative comments only to other colleagues.
 Be active in professional organizations.
 Recognize the value of nursing’s contributions.
 Value caring, health promotion, and health teaching
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