Nursing Perception and Reality
Nursing Perception and Reality
(Nursing Perception and Reality)
Question description
Please respond to the following post with a paragraph
Re:Topic 2 DQ 2
The general public is always very diverse in their thoughts and views as evidenced every day when people voice their political views or discuss food choices or banter back and forth about what cars they choose to buy. Nurses unfortunately, are not on any different spectrum when it comes to how they are perceived. Many people think that nurses are just transporters of patients or gatherers of supplies. They have learned all they know about nurses from watching hundreds of hours of television shows over the years where they show the doctors doing the work that the nurses usually do. Some people think that nurses are only there to take you to the bathroom or help you with a shower or bath. They have no idea what a Certified Nurse’s Assistant is or what duties they perform. Many times, throughout the work week in the Intensive Care Unit phone calls are received or friends or family of patients visit, and they want to talk to the doctor. Those requests are triaged and sometimes they can be valid because of a very complex situation but usually more often than not they are simple questions that the nurse or charge nurse is able to answer. That is something that is always mind blowing and makes one realize what little information that a lot of people think nurses know.
Television plays the biggest role in people’s thoughts and understanding about what nurses do. Television has very unrealistic situations and very rarely shows nurses doing the actual work that they do on a daily basis. On the daytime show, “The View” one of the hosts mocked a nurse during a pageant asking why she was wearing a “doctor’s stethoscope.” This sparked national attention and debate. Many nurses took a stand and the program ended up losing some of their sponsors and had to issue an apology.
(Nursing Perception and Reality)
Clothing also creates a huge amount of confusion over what a nurse’s role is. Scrubs are worn by anyone and everyone that chooses to wear them whether they be a food services worker, a housekeeper, or a biomedical engineer. Anyone wearing a white coat that is male is usually perceived as a doctor, even when they have already verbally identified themselves to the patient and family as a nuclear medicine technician or echocardiogram technician. Medical assistants in physician’s offices are often called “nurses”. Many of them have a certificate in medical assisting from a college but this even is not always required for them to work in a physician’s office as it is up to the physician and office manager’s discretion.
In order to educate the general public about the professional nurse’s role it would take a lot of work and a large number of nurses coming together to create change along with consistency of follow through year after year. Some suggestions (Summers & Summers, 2016) to start the education process would be for the nurse to project a professional image in all interactions. This would entail that when you meet someone you would introduce yourself as a nurse and include your last name as physicians do. Also, when performing your nursing assessment, you could describe your assessment and interventions as you perform them. This could help patients and family members to understand your professional knowledge and ask questions. As referenced above, clothing can play a big part in what the public may think a nurse’s role is. Cartoon characters on scrubs can seem childish and unprofessional unless worn in the correct limited setting. Nurses should work to maintain professionalism in their own attire, appearance, grooming and hygiene.
Media portrayal of nurses has a huge effect on the public’s thoughts and knowledge of the nursing profession. Hospitals often have communication departments that highlight physicians on their bulletins or webpages. One way to promote the nurses in a facility (Summers & Summers, 2016) would be to form a work group to increase awareness of nursing achievements and innovations and publish those on a bulletin or webpage that is seen by the public and/or other facility employees. Many times, the media can get things wrong just as they can also get things right. Nurses can submit feedback to media outlets by giving positive reinforcement. This can be done by phone calls, hard-copy letters, email, twitter hashtags or other social media commenting. The same strategy can also be used when negative nursing portrayal is observed.
Works Cited
Summers, S., & Summers, H. (2016, March). American Nurse Today. Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/lets-take-lead-…
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