Week 1 Discussion Topic NR 395
Describe the way in which nurses are perceived by your patients and the public. Do the bestknown nurses currently depicted
... [Show More] in the media represent the type of nursing image you wish to
promote?
Speaking of image, do you feel that no longer wearing traditional white uniforms has had an
impact on how nurses are perceived? Is how you dress an important part of your public image?
What could you do to improve the professional image of nurses?
Nurses in reference to how we come off to the patients in my facility are primarily seen as a
serving profession. We give patients their medications and conduct treatments and procedures,
however, hospitals have been turning towards hospitality services and we bend over backwards
to make sure whatever the patient wishes has been done immediately when requested. This
task becomes difficult when the patient load for one nurse is 6 and they all require individual
needs. Huston (2017) mentions that “If asked to describe a nurse, most of the public would use
such terms as nice, hardworking, or caring. They would also use the terms ethical and honest”
which even some of my friends would include in discussing a nurse, however they are more
educated on what a nurse is required to do in knowing me and listening to my trials and
tribulations encountered during my working day (Hutson, pg. 348). I am not one who watches
those nursing TV shows like ER, Nurse Jackie, or Greys Anatomy like some may, but I have been
watching a new TV series called New Amsterdam which focuses on the doctor’s interactions, but
in these episodes, you can see nurses in the background running around and conducting patient
care. The nurses in the background look like the nurses on my floor, giving medications in codes,
monitoring a patient having a seizure, doing dressing changes, etc. Though nurses are not
wearing white uniforms and caps like in the olden days, my facility has incorporated color coded
uniforms to differentiate between Patient Care Assistants (wearing grey or lavender) and the
Nursing team (navy blue). Penn Med News (2015) wrote an article that discussed the ol [Show Less]