The Image of the Professional Nurse
Nursing is a profession that has a long, and rich history. Modern nursing began in the Crimean War with Florence Nightingale, where it evolved from a humble, over-looked, and usually religious occupation, for unmarried or matronly women. Using the CINAHL database, and the search terms stereotypes in nursing, and nursing stereotypes, to find information regarding the professional image of nursing, it is obvious that it is an image that has changed drastically since first becoming a profession. In the modern day and age, there is a demand for people to enter the professional field as nurses, and they are accepting of everyone. However, despite the wide acceptance there now is for anyone to become a nurse, there …show more content…
While “[h]istorically, nurses deferred to physicians,” (Hoeve, Jansen, Roodbol, 2013, p. 296), this is still seen as the case within most media, including Harry Potter. For example, during the sixth book of the series, a student suffers an injury, and instead of Madam Pomfrey treating the student, as is her job, another professor who was seen as more competent in regards to the injury, preformed the treatment, before the student was transferred to the books equivalent of a hospital. This instance shows that even though nurses might be recognized as medical professionals, the media still does not promote this fact. Nevertheless, there has been an obvious response to the misinformation on nursing in the media, with nurses collaborating, and speaking up to correct, and dismantle the negative stereotypes that they are subjected …show more content…
28) but nurses are their own people, and so much more than just sensory organs for another person. Nurses are at the very core of health care, and have been so since Florence Nightingale, who “saw nursing as an independent profession that was not subordinate but equal to the medical profession,” (Hoeve, Jansen, Roodbol, 2013, p. 296), and they will continue to be an integral part of the health care field. However, due to the prevalence of negative and out of date stereotypes within the media, the public, and patients, do not realize just how important nurses are. Therefore, it becomes part of a nurse’s job to help educate their clients in what a nurse does, by way of, as stated by Gellar and Summers (2014), “articulating their assessments and verbalizing what they’re thinking,” (p. 30). In this way, nurses can help patients to understand not only what they are going through, but are able to provide proof that nurses are not just “handmaiden[‘s] who follow physicians’ commands,” (p.