NURS 6900 Healthcare Issues & Trends

NAME Jill Nelson

Case Study, Chapter 23, Professional Identity and Image

Huston, C. (2020). Professional issues in nursing: Challenges and opportuniti es (5th ed.).
Wolters Kluwer.
Nursing care is frequently perceived by the public as simple and unskilled. Many male
nurses live in fear of how their caring actions might be interpreted. Many nurses hold that
stereotypes about the profession are true, just as the general public does. Public identity
and image has been a struggle for nurses for a long time. The greater public clearly does
not understand what professional nursing is all about, and the nursing profession has done
a poor job of correcting long-standing, historically inaccurate stereotypes

1. What are the common nursing stereotypes?

Answer: Common nursing stereotypes mentioned in the text include angel of mercy, love
interest (especially to physicians), sex icon/naughty nurse, handmaiden to the physician,
battle-axe, and male nurses as homosexual, effeminate, or sexual predators.

2. What was the role of the Center for Nursing Advocacy? Discuss the role of Truth about
Nursing in addressing inaccurate or negative portrayals of nursing in the media and the
process they use to raise public and professional awareness of the issues surrounding
nursing public image?

Answer: The Center for Nursing Advocacy was created by graduate nursing students to
address the media's disrespectful portrayal of nurses. The Truth About Nursing is a
nonprofit organization that was formed after the dissolution of the Center for Nursing
Advocacy. The Truth About Nursing aims to increase public understanding and media
portrayal of modern nursing in order to foster growth in the field and lessen the effects of
the nursing shortage.

vmodell: 9/2020
NURS 6900 Healthcare Issues & Trends

3. What are some of the ways of changing nursing’s image in the public eye?

Answer: Some ways to change the public's view of nurses include resctricting the use of the
term nurse only to actual licensed nurses, increased efforts to portray the nurses role in
improved patient outcomes, and nurses becoming more involved in the political processes
that affect nursing. This will require involvement from nursing organizations as well as
individual nurses working to change the image of nurses.

4. One of the most important strategies needed to change nursing’s image is to change the
image of nursing in the mind of the image makers. What are some of the key ways for
nurses to interact with the media?

Answer: Nurses can provide a view from the frontline and help bring national health issues
to their local community. They can also help simplify medical terminology, explain health
research, and identify trends in healthcare. In order to make this possible it's important for
nurses to learn the necessary skills to be self confident when working with the media, and
to see the media as playing a critical role in changing the punlic image of nursing.

vmodell: 9/2020