Nursing Contemporary Nursing Stereotypes on Television Author Essay

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Nursing

Contemporary Nursing Stereotypes on Television

Author Carol J. Huston writes in a boldly honest narrative that the nursing industry must seek to be populated with "smart… bright…highly motivated" nurses who "want to make a difference" in the lives of the patients they tend to (Huston, 2013, p. 319). Nurses must "…stop acting like victims" and instead use their best instincts and have a positive influence on public policy (Huston, 319). In order to do that nurses must be able to break out of the stereotypes that seem to follow them, especially on television and in the movies, Huston explains.

The stereotypes on television that Huston presents to the reader include: a) a nurse is an "Angel of mercy"; b) nurses have love interests in doctors; c) nurses are "sex bombshells" and "naughty"; d) a nurse is a "handmaiden to the physician"; e) nurses can be "battle-axes"; and f) male nurses are either gay, effeminate or "sexually predatory" (Huston, 329).

Romantic relationships between nurses and doctors "…abound on contemporary television shows," Huston continues (330). On ER, Scrubs, House, and on Gray's Anatomy, the stereotypes of romance actually come closer to "sexual liaisons" according to Huston.

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In the past forty years, Huston asserts, nurses have been portrayed as "sex objects" on television and in the film industry. The movies in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were "…filled with images of nurses garbed in miniskirts, sleazy, low-cut tops, and high heels," as they spend considerable time "fulfilling sexual fantasies and virtually no time providing care to patients" (Huston, 330).

Some readers might conclude that Huston is exaggerating the bad image that television has created about nurses, but she provides numerous examples of these negative stereotypes to bolster her position. For example, a 10-week television series in the UK in 2004 depicted nurses as "…sexed-up independent women" who were smokers, drinkers, and after finishing at work (and engaging in a "steam clinch in the linen cupboard") they would enjoy a "…wild night of clubbing" (Huston, 331). This kind of television production is contemptible and it reeks of a media company pandering to the darkest of human impulses and presenting a false image of nurses in the process.

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