• MY ASSIGNMENT IS TO RESPOND TO THE DISCUSSION POST BELOW  FROM MY PEER.

• Question from the instructor:
• Does media portrayal of nursing affect how patients perceive nurses as authority figures? Why or why not? Think about nursing stereotypes and discuss the ways you can influence the public image of nursing.
• Discuss the various roles nurses can play that support the real image of nursing. Think about community health care and preventive services for all, but especially the underserved..
• Response from my peer to the instructor:
• Yes it very much does. If a patient has only had bad experiences with nursing staff and has seen shows on TV such as “nurses who kill” and news stories of nurses getting caught stealing narcotics from patients then of course they will have a negative outlook to the whole nursing occupation. Perhaps they have even had a bad nurse take care of their loved one and demonstrate a fatal error or an error that they think made a huge difference in their loved one’s care. Any of these factors can affect how the public sees nurses as a whole and treats them. These negative or positive encounters or medial coverage can help or hinder nurses when they are trying to be an authoritative figure for their patients and the public alike. The reasoning for this is the fact that unfortunately most people believe everything that they see on the television. They consider it their primary source of information and usually do not question it.

Some nursing stereotypes that definitely influence our public image could be something like nurses are all females, and that nurse’s shifts are just like they are portrayed on TV. (Brooks, 2019). Nurses are getting more and more diverse with every year that comes by and that alone should tell the public that things are NOT like they are portrayed on TV. Tv is severely lacking in diversity right now and it is not at all how the real medical field is. The way we can influence our public image is by establishing realistic boundaries of what the real nursing profession is and how diverse it is. This can be done by managers hiring diverse populations of nurses in all genders and race and ethnicities.

• Nursing roles that support the real image of nursing… When I read this I think of being the patient’s advocate. That is the real image of nursing. It is not about what you see on TV that week with Grey’s Anatomy or scrubs… It is the real deal of being your patient’s voice despite family wishes or input from outside sources. Being a patient advocate is what nursing is really about at the end of the day. In order to play advocate to those who really need you, nursing roles in the VA, community hospital for homeless, free STD testing clinics, and nurse medics in the military really speak nursing to me. They play the roles of advocates, authoritarians, teachers, and many more.

Reference

Brooke, A., (July 22, 2019). 9 Nursing Stereotypes That Are Just Wrong. Retrieved from: https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/nursing/blog/nursing-stereotypes/

My assignement is to respond to the post above from my peer.