The Image of Nursing

As part of the nursing class I am currently completing, I have to answer opinion based questions. Here is this week's question and my response.

Question: What is the current image of nursing in society?

While the media may devalue nursing as a profession in shows such as "Gray's Anatomy" by portraying nurses as mere "helpers to doctors," this is not the overall, actual accepted perception of nurses in the public.

Nurses are consistently described as honest and ethical in gallop polls year after year. The public sees nurses as caring - for individuals and the community with hands on help and healing with an ability to make a positive difference (Roxane, 2004). This is in part because, fortunately, an individual's perception of nursing is not singularly shaped by popular prime time television shows. Rather, people are exposed to nursing in a variety of ways including their own personal experience with professional nurses. And, the average person's experience with nursing is that of a positive nature. Additionally, people consistently receive positive images of nurses assisting with disastrous situations in news stories .

In fact, one 2008 Nursing Economics study revealed that "The public sees nursing as combining knowledge, skill, and professionalism with caring (Donelan, Buerhaus, Desroches, Dittus & Dutwin, 2008)."

Therefore, the image of nursing in society is influenced in various ways resulting in an overall positive view of the professional nurse.

Donelan, K., Buerhaus, P., Desroches, C., Dittus, R., Dutwin, D. Public Perceptions of Nursing Careers. (2008). Nursing Economics, 26(3): 143-150.
Roxane, S. Restoring caring back into nursing (2004). Nursing Administration Quarterly, 28(4): 255-257.