The Image of Nursing Essay

Many things influence one’s personal perceptions of the great profession called nursing. According to the American Nurses Association, nursing is defined as “protection, promotion, and abilities, prevention of illness and injury,

It is a common fact that nurses are not given the respect they deserve for the high level of knowledge they demonstrate to patients (Hoeve, Jansen & Roodbol, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to show how the negative portrayals of nurses in the media can result in a distorted image from the public. The components of this paper talk about the negative image of the nurse due to the lack of consistency in the media that the public is viewing, as well as the shortened staff and the public’s poor judgement on the profession.

Nursing should not be looked upon or practiced as a mere physical approach to healing. Nursing should encompass the aspect of restoring each individual patient to his/her maximum physical and emotional state of being. In order to achieve such a goal, a patient must be able to bond with her caregiver on a personal level (Blais & Hayes, 2011). Jean Watson’s caritas factors sets an environment where the patient can obtain optimum health benefits (Blais & Hayes, 2011). The goal of this paper is to state my philosophy of nursing, the important dynamics and values that led me to adopting this philosophy, and the reason why I choose nursing as a profession. I will further explain how Jean Watson’s principles of philosophy is

Nursing is defined as the promotion, protection and the prevention of illness and Injury, the treatment of a patient’s disease or diseases, the patient’s response to a disease, as well as one big thing that nurses are known for, and that is being a patient’s advocate nursing has been one of the fastest growing fields since the 1990’s (Mueller et al.,2012). Advocacy is defined as an action in which a person speaks out, argues a cause, supports and defends on the behalf of others. I believe that the role of being a patient advocate is one of the most important things a nurse can do because there are many patients that cannot speak on their behalf, I believe that it is up to the nurses to be those patients as well as all patient’s voices (Mueller et al., 2012).

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.

Slide 1: The expectations of nurses today are higher than ever with goals such as achieving top percentiles in nursing and patient satisfaction, to being among the top leaders in quality outcomes, and to build productive work relationships and environments. Nursing leaders serve as the primary link between staff, physicians, and the community. They are expected to be innovative, highly skilled, possess a certain degree of nursing knowledge, and produce qualified individuals to care for the growing population. According to Lorber, Treven, and Mumel (2016) “nursing leadership is pivotal because nurses represent the most extensive discipline in health care”. Because of this growing need for diversity in leadership and my background in the military, I decided to focus on the MSN Executive Track at Chamberlain College of Nursing.

I realized I wanted to be a nurse after I had my 2nd ACL surgery, my senior year of high school. I had to stay in the hospital 3 days in order to recover, and I was very lucky to have such a wonderful and caring nurse. She made me feel as if I was her only patient. I will never forget how well I was taken care of and how comfortable she made me feel. I was young and scared, but she was reassuring, because she made me feel as if I had my own mother taking care of me. She was the reason I wanted to become a nurse, because I wanted to make others feel the way she made me feel. My personal definition of nursing is encompassed within that one nurse. A nurse should be loving, compassionate, dependable, competent, empathic, responsible,

According to Hoeve, Jansen, & Roodbol (2014), to improve the nursing public image and to obtain a stronger position in healthcare organizations, nurses need to increase their visibility. But individually, nurses needs to recognize the value in what we do, believed in ourselves and our colleagues, and dress the part. Each nurse needs to explore how his /her actions or inactions affect the nursing image. . We need to recognize that the images and behavior outside the workplace on social media such as YouTube, FaceBook or Instagram can affect our workplace image. How we portray ourselves in public to our patient can dispel any misconceptions the public may have of nurses and the profession by reeducating the community, educating nursing students on how to project a positive image of nursing, and helping students to understand the meaning of professionalism. Hoeve, Jansen, & Roodol (2014) also suggested that nurses should work harder to communicate both their professionalism and their contribution to the healthcare system to the public. Kalisch and Kalisch (1983) state that

Professional nurses are as important, in achieving success, as any other component within the healthcare sector. For instance, a professional nurse typically spends more time in direct contact with patients than a physician does (Hendrich et al., 2008). Nevertheless, media sources have always painted the picture of a nurse in various forms. Although nurses are sometimes perceived as life savers and angels of mercy, the profession is often sexualized, stereotyped, and undermined in its importance (Hoeve et al., 2014). In this paper I will describe how the media portrays a professional nurse, and compare it with the current knowledge in literature –searched through a professional search engine, CINAHL. Then I will provide an insight into

To conclude, this paper was able to touch on the substantial subject regarding the image of nursing, what plays a huge role in shaping the image of nursing in the public eye. Furthermore, it was determined that the media hold a great effect on how the population views nursing. As a matter of fact, most of what was discovered was that the media portrayal of the profession. It was portrayed negatively, making the public doubt about the real work that nurses see in to. In this profession. In this paper, suggestions were made on how to fight the stereotypes that affect the image of

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.

Nursing as a discipline has set forward an explicit desire to serve the public and it is the service and commitment to the individual and overall wellbeing of our society that drives and directs the study and practice of nurses, educators and nurse scholars (Smith & Parker, 2010).

Nursing is a profession that blends the rich traditions of the past with the ever changing realities of today's health care industry. Nursing is not simply an assortment of special skills and the nurse is not simply a person proficient in performing these specific tasks. Nursing is a profession. I believe this statement to be true because of several factors. The Title 19 Code for Nurses is titled "Standards for Professional Nursing Practice". The status of nursing as a profession reflects the values that society places on the work of nurses and how central nursing is to the good of society. "By being a professional we imply that the person is conscientious in actions, knowledgeable in the subject and

The healthcare system comprises of various disciplines, one of which is the discipline of nursing. I feel that compared to other disciplines like medicine, nursing has minimal recognition of being a discipline on its own. According to (IAIN W. GRAHAM), nurses are always needed by the society, however, the society lacks in acknowledging the social status of nurses. Hence, being nurses, we have to understand and uphold the importance of our nursing. I am writing this letter to you as I would like to share with you on why it is important to study the discipline of nursing. I hope after reading this letter you would be enlightened and be motivated to spread what you have gained from reading this letter to other nurses.