TV dramas put nurses in new spotlight
Medical professionals will keep a keen eye on three new shows
“Hot Lips” Houlihan, the nurse from television’s M.A.S.H., was so consumed with romance and rules that she gave patients the brush-off.
Three decades later, on Grey’s Anatomy, an adoring nurse teases Dr. “McDreamy” for talking about “boring science stuff” beyond her comprehension.
Nurses on TV are many things — love interests and handmaidens, bimbos, bureaucratic battle-axes, or selfless angels changing bedpans — but scarcely reflect the range of skills and abilities demanded by a profession that’s centered on patient care.
“I believe that Joe Public has no idea what nurses do,” says registered nurse Anita O’Brien, a care manager at Rochester General Hospital.
That might change with two new summer shows focused on nurse heroines: Showtime’s Nurse Jackie, starring Edie Falco of Sopranos fame, on Mondays and TNT’s HawthoRNe, starring Jada Pinkett Smith, on Tuesdays. (A third nursing show, Mercy, premieres this fall on NBC.)
“For a change, nurses won’t be set dressing on a medical show,” says Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “It will be interesting to see if these cut against the stereotypes and cartoon presentations.”
For registered nurse Sandy Summers, the shows are must-see TV. In her recent book, Saving Lives (Kaplan, $24.95), Summers argues that medical dramas credit doctors with the patient care and treatment that nurses, in reality, provide without fanfare. Their minimized roles on screen, she says, feed into a lack of respect and resources for the industry.
Summers, a former intensive care unit nurse, started paying attention to nurses on ER in 1998. She drew a connection in her mind when George W. Bush proposed cuts to nurse-education funding in his first term. “Nursing has not received adequate resources because it continues to be seen as a peripheral, menial job,” she says.
By flooding the show’s office with letters, Summers scored a conference call with ER’s co-executive producers and medical adviser, who she describes as “a prickly physician who insisted that ‘Of course nurses matter in our show; they literally wallpaper the background.’”
And that, retorted Summers, was precisely the problem.
Summers’ lobbying did result in richer, more rounded story lines for the ER nurses. But explicit contempt for the profession has festered on series like Grey’s Anatomy, whose female doctors bristle at being mistaken for nurses — and interns are assigned revolting “nurses’ work” as punishment. “These doctors treat nurses as second-class citizens,” says Summers. “For them, nurses belong in the dustbin of history.”
“These women have no identity beyond ‘Nurse!’” says Pamela Smith, who directs the Edvantage career development program at the University of Rochester School of Nursing. “It does validate the public perception that nurses don’t play a key role in care.”
Far from being escapist entertainment, these shows often rankle nurses who live the part. “These TV productions perpetuate the myth that doctors are directly involved in patient care around-the-clock, and nurses are there to hold a clipboard or hand the doctor supplies,” says Sarah Szucs, a registered nurse who works in the acute physical rehabilitation unit at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Stereotypes, nurses say, can often sting. Smith recalls fending off a patient who tried to kiss her, and struggling to reassure others who shrink in fear of the evil “stickler nurse” stereotype.
“We try to fight that by building trust, to explain in layman’s terms what we’re doing, to say, ‘I’m here in your best interests,’” she says.
But does TV truly distort the image of nursing in the public mind?
“If you’re looking for an accurate portrayal of nursing, fictional TV is not where you should go — any more than you watch ER to learn brain surgery,” says Thompson, who argues that viewers can separate fact from fantasy.
Still, nurses are excited at the prospect of shows that grant them a long-awaited spotlight. “Each show has potential — I’m holding my breath on all three of them,” says Summers. “Nurses save lives all day, every day. What could be more compelling and dramatic?”
Pheterson is a freelance writer for several Rochester-area publications.
