Review Of ' Dr. Mcdreamy Stealing The Spotlight On Public Perception And The Contemporary Nursing Shortage

In order to achieve success while writing the term paper, multiple scholarly pieces were used. The databases that obtained these consisted of: ProQuest, CINAHL, Medline, and Ovid. The limits that were selected were: 1) English, 2) Peer reviewed, 3) Published between 2011-2015, 4) Scholarly journals, 5) Full text. By selecting these options I was able to attain accurate and relevant journals necessary. The search terms were nursing, negative, image, and media. Multiple articles appeared but only three were chosen to describe how nurses are stereotyped in the media and negatively portrayed to the public.

It is often said that the media and the arts are an accurate reflection of any given community. This is especially true in American pop-culture, where television shows depict the various stereotypes attributed to men and women and the roles they play in society. House, a highly popular medical drama that revolves around Dr. Gregory House and his diagnostic team, is a particularly good example as it represents the true state of the traditional gender roles in American culture today by, both, redefining and reinforcing them over the course of the show.

In one episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” a male doctor insults a female doctor, by calling her a nurse (Rhimes). The female doctor feels offended being called a nurse and replied “Did you just called me a nurse?” As a student nurse, I believe that nursing is a respectable profession. We are not medical school rejects, dropouts or failures. We chose nursing, because we wanted to be a nurse as bad as the Medical Schools’ students want to become MDs. Unfortunately, this kind of stereotype has created a big misunderstanding of nursing in the eyes of our

This essay focuses on the impact of historical development of nursing on contemporary representations of the nursing profession. It examines the professional identity of nursing and further discusses the contribution of modern nursing, social, cultural and political factors that influences the professional identity of a nurse. The essay also looks into the professional regulations and the role of the nurse’s and midwifery Council (NMC) in the protection of the public. Finally, this essay will discuss nursing education, the media, stereotype, and their impacts on nurses as well as demonstrate my understanding as a student nurse to challenge the professional identity of nurses.

Media has an immense effect on societal views, and cultural norms. It is not surprising then, that media influences the public view of the nursing profession (McHugh, 2012). Negative portrayal of nursing in media is detrimental, these stereotypes undermine the profession which leads to less resources and a negative image of nursing among nursing students (Anonymous, 2010). For these reasons the image of nursing in media is something that needs to be explored, to understand how the nursing image in media affects both public and personal perception of the profession (Anonymous, 2010). Nurse Jackie is a controversial television show about an Emergency room nurse named Jackie (Hudis & Zisk, 2009). In this series Jackie is middle aged, married, mother of two, and while she is depicted as being loving with her family, she is having an affair with the pharmacist for her department. As a nurse Jackie is caring, and compassionate towards her patients, while also exhibiting unethical and inappropriate behaviours both within and outside of her working environment (Sorrell, 2009). Jackie is a complex character who exhibits both positive and negative nursing behaviours.

Nursing as a profession is often portrayed by the media in demeaning ways. “Nurses have often been unfairly and unrealistically portrayed as “battle axes” or psychologically compromised. And that’s if they are written into the script at all.” (Berkowitz, 2014). “They are often portrayed as physician helpers, not the highly skilled independent clinicians that we know they are.” (Berkowitz, 2014).

The media is known to have immense influences on the public perception from body images to what kind of car people should buy. And the nursing image is not immune to these influences. What Hollywood transmits to the public about nurse’s works much like an advertising industry. Television has represented nurses in varying degrees and not all of them are flattering. We have been portrayed as

Men currently are looked down on in the nursing profession due to many different beliefs. While it’s true in some, if not a very rare few, these beliefs are what make the nursing profession for men uncomforting and discouraging. It is believed many male nurses are gay and because of this lack the acceptance they look for. Another belief is that men have an inappropriate ‘sexual’ behavior. They must be careful when caring (touching) for a patient in any way. Men are highly subject to accusations and it makes it almost impossible for a male nurse to perform his job to the fullest (Evans).

This report explores the changes in gender roles since the 1980’s and their impact on the nursing profession

Up until the 1800’s, the job of a nurse belonged to the male population because of its affiliation with the military and religious orders. Early religious orders such as the Benedictine nursing order and St. Alexis were brotherhoods delegated to holy men. The military utilized male nurses during a time of war in the front lines, while female nurses worked in the hospitals. But because of the shortage of male nurses during the civil war, women were recruited to take the place of the men and the emergence of nursing schools dedicated to women started to flourish while diminishing the male role as a nurse. Unfortunately, in today’s society, the role of a nurse is thought to be that of a females job and men who enter the field are considered

The stereotype of the male nurse is one that has existed for many years – the reasons are many. How did this stereotype start? What problems does the stereotype

The media has an impact and creates a baseline of professional identities, along with the stereotypes that follow. Today, there are many television channels that portray a negative image of nurses, making assumptions and make a mockery of the profession. An example of this is the medical drama ‘House’. There are multiple episodes that reflect the drama's portrayal of nurses such as their view on nursing bedside care, and relying on the physicians to do all of the thinking, have competence and be the hero of the story. The nurses are seen as handmaidens with incompetence when it comes to knowledge and ability and cannot perform the simple tasks or detect an emergency situation.

The male nurses are gay or effeminate is one of the negative images that are popular in the society. The public view male nurses in negative ways as they believe that nursing is a woman’s profession. According to Fisher as cited in Young (2002), male nurses are frequently stereotyped as non-achievers, homosexuals, and feminine. It is called as non-achievers as public perceived that male should be in another profession such as physician or engineer (Young, 2002). This make the recruitment of male students into the nursing profession become difficult as their parent will disapprove it. Moreover, people also think that all male nurses are feminine and homosexuals as they choose to be in the woman’s profession which need them to be caring and more

The nursing profession is one of many portrayed by the media. In its simplest form media is how information is shared and stored. Media covers a wide range of services, advertisements, brochures, pamphlets, TV shows, films, novels, and magazines, digital, electronic, it goes on and on. Media is more accessible these days; the internet and wireless technology makes it easy for many people to access information on a wide scale. As information is shared by the media the public creates an image. This image may be right or it can be wrong, it all depends on the media’s accuracy. Nurses have been depicted in many forms over the years. These depictions can influence the public’s opinion of the profession as well as the likelihood that the profession will be considered for future students. Nurses need to take a more active role in how the profession is portrayed by the media, they need to work together to portray the profession in its best light in order to recruit and retain nurses.

There are many stereotypes against male nurses; however, this paper mainly focuses on four stereotypes: “physicians wanna-be”, “gay or effeminate”, “misfit”, and “men are not caring” . Indeed, stereotypes are the biggest obstacle for men to pursue the profession dominated by women. From Hodes Research in 2005, about 93% RN’s from 498 male responders completed an extensive survey about “Men in Nursing”. 73% of responders perceived stereotypes as “the top challenge” for men who sought employment in nursing careers. Furthermore, Burton and Misener discuss how negative media images of men in nursing have shaped stereotypes. Because the image of men commonly associates with dominant roles, public perception assumes men as physicians in the healthcare professions. This stereotype emphasizes that male nurses are those who failed medical school and went the alternative route to be a nurse. Secondly, male nurses are often stereotyped “gay or effeminate.” The father-in-law criticizes Ben Stiller’s character, from the movie Meet the Parents, that he is effeminate and lacked intelligence to be a physician because he is just a nurse. Many people assume nursing