Prompt #10- Recognizing Truth

By: Shane S.

There is no doubt the medical field is one of the highest respected jobs in the world, and for good reason. Patient's are coming in and putting their lives in the doctor's hands, so they must be trustworthy. Almost every medical professional is held to a high regard... except nurses.

In media, nurses are depicted as attractive and somewhat clueless. This is only perpetuated with a "nurses" halloween costume. For one, they are the wrongly created stereotype from the 50s-60s. They have skirts and are portrayed as "sexy." This is no where near the case for actual scrubs.

Scrubs are meant to be functional, not pretty. For one, when they're assisting in a surgery, they have to be protected from bodily fluids that may get on the person. That means they must be covered from head to toe... which is something the costume also depicts. Also, a nurse doesn't go to work to look pretty, the nurse goes there to do their job. Scrubs have many pockets and other functional accessories to assist in their job. Not some frilly hat and a stethoscope around their hat.

In addition to those stereotypes, you never see a male nurse costume, only female nurses. Which is another untrue stereotype that the media perpetuates. On many TV shows, there are always more female nurses than male.

The nurse also is shown to take a back seat to the doctor. For example, in one of the episodes, a nurse says "You're the surgeon, hon -- you tell us!" This is another untrue example as many nurses know just as much as the doctors. 

Media perpetuates a sense of degrading-ness to being a nurse. They're more often than not depicted as dumb and pretty. Their clothes are depicted as attractive over functional. And their personas are always female, not male. It's the combination of all of these that give nursing a bad name. 

Citation:

Lampert, L., RN. (2013, October 1). 4 Ways the media gets nursing dead wrong. Retrieved April 06, 2016, from http://www.mightynurse.com/4-ways-the-media-gets-nursing-dead-wrong-stories/

            (accessed 2016, April 6).

Picture URLs:
http://i.allheart.com/images/detail/ahb2000/1_ah-b2000--cei_750.jpg
http://static1.funidelia.co.uk/35608-thickbox/suggestive-nurse-costume-for-a-woman.jpg