Paper #1: The Public\'s Understanding of Nurses PDF

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Running Head: The Public’s Understanding of Nurses

Paper #1: The Public’s Understanding of Nurses Kathryn Treacy Boston College

NURS 2070 Sunday, February 23, 2020 Meet the Parents is a movie with the character Greg Focker who is frequently stereotyped

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for being a male nurse. Jack Byrnes, Pam’s father, says Greg is not masculine enough for Pam. Greg constantly receives condescending challenges to his intellect from other characters because of the misconception that nurses are not smart enough to be doctors. Pam’s ex-fiancé inaccurately thought nursing as admirable volunteer work instead of a paid profession. These generalities are dangerous to the nursing profession because it makes the public view nursinf negatively. They enhance the existing negative perception of nursing in the media and harms the nursing profession because it discourages people from pursuing the nursing profession, especially men (when nursing needs men more than ever). However, by using the power of social media, nurses can reinvent the patronizing public image of nursing and instead reflect nursing's ethos: care, empathy, and selflessness. Greg Focker subtly defines three positive aspects of nursing: patient care, composure under high stress situations, and pleasing others. The first positive aspect Greg Focker portrays is always putting your patients first and he demonstrates this when he explains that he chose nursing because he wanted to focus on patient care and work closely with patients. One example of this is when Greg delivers a baby and because Greg displayed such caring and dedicated qualities, the father wanted to name his child after him. Another important character trait is that Greg stays composed in high stress situations. This is seen when Greg gets up from the dinner table and takes a time out in the kitchen, muttering to himself instead of lashing out at Jack Byrnes. His ability to control his temper would be very useful in the highly demanding and stressful healthcare environment. Another characteristic of Greg Focker is that he goes out of his way to please others. Greg's willingness to bend over backwards for Jack might appear to be a sign of weakness, but his search for approval is also a sign of strength because it demonstrates his commitment to making others happy. This correlates with one key aspect to being a good

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nurse which is making sure your patients and their family members are as comfortable as possible. If a nurse helps out the patient or family, even in the slightest of ways, it can make a positive impact on their stay at the hospital and help promote patient healing. Meet the Fockers showcases the ways in which people stereotype the nursing profession. All the characters, especially Jack Byrnes, are narrow-minded regarding Greg and thus generalize by stating male nurses are not masculine enough, nurses are not smart enough to be doctors, and nursing is admirable volunteer work rather than a paid profession. At one point in the movie, Greg states that he is in the nursing field and the other characters laugh and think that he was making a joke. To them, nursing is a job for women and not men. This mirrors the idea that male nurses lack masculinity, a persistent stereotype throughout the movie. A nurse has to be caring, empathetic, and selfless which are classically feminine qualities. Throughout the movie, the viewer can see that Greg possesses all these qualities but it is important to note that does not make him any less of a man. These stereotypes, if not stopped, can set dangerous precedent for future generations because the nursing field suffers from a shortage in man and leaving these dangerous and wrong stereotypes unchallenged will only exacerbate this problem. All of these generalizations have been portrayed in TV shows and movies in some form and it is important that the media changes this because it will end up harming the nursing field. One of the key aspects that Meet the Parents is missing about nursing is shaping your professional identity as a nurse. Nursing requires a particular mindset, intuition, and critical thinking skills to deliver excellent care that can only be honed after years of professional practice and study. Because the movie does not demonstrate this aspect of nursing, nursing gets portrayed as easy or a job that anyone can do. This may be why one of the characters concluded that nursing is simply admirable volunteer work rather than a paid profession. There are two parts to

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professional socialization of nursing. The first is structural conditions which is a nurse’s role being shaped by rules the hospital may have. The second is cultural conditions which shape someone as a nurse. Combining these two things together helps create a professional nurse and helps the nurse to develop a positive self-image (Black, 2016, p. 92). Part of professional socialization is to absorb the rituals and behaviors of nursing. Nurses also have to learn to adapt to challenges such as new vocabulary which is part of the professional nurse socialization. Going along with this, nurses also have to challenge what they think of as “normal” which includes but is not limited to personal beliefs. The Code of Ethics for Nurses requires that all nurses work with all patients regardless if their beliefs clash or contradict each other (Black, 2016, p. 93). As a result, nurses have to learn to care for everyone that becomes their patient. When nursing is mentioned in Meet the Fockers, the movie never highlights that the socialization of nursing is more than teaching a nurse how to do wound care; it is about thinking like a nurse and developing a nursing conscious. One way that nurses can help reverse people’s perception of the field is through social media. The Pew Research Center conducted a study from 2016 - 2018 to see where Americans are getting news and information from and, unsurprisingly, one in five Americans gets their news from social media (Shearer, 2018). In addition to this, in another study done by the Pew Research Center, roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults go online at least daily (Perrin & Kumar, 2019). People share things they found on social media with friends eventually causing a ripple effect. Posting one thing on social media gets people talking and has the capacity of going viral. As a result, in an effort to eliminate nursing stereotypes, nurses can help the general public understand what the profession is about through social media applications such as Facebook and YouTube. According to the Pew Research Center, these two sites are the most popular among United States adults as

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73% use YouTube and 69% use Facebook. 75% of 18 to 24 year olds tend to be more on Instagram (Perrin & Anderson, 2019). By using social media, nursing will reach a larger audience than if it were to use TV shows and movies. Another example of how social media can be used as a powerful tool is the #MeToo movement. This movement started with one simple hashtag on Twitter. It got everybody talking which helped raise awareness for sexual assault. By using social media, the nursing field has the opportunity to replicate a similar firestorm regarding stereotypes. Social media can affect millions of people so it is essential to the health and prosperity of nursing to begin having a stronger presence on all social media platforms. The usage of social media to raise public consciousness about nursing has already shown success at a small scale. Johns Hopkins launched a campaign on social media called #WeGotThis in which it used popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube over a period of two weeks to spread the word of what nursing is. This campaign sent a ripple throughout social media. “The New Script of Nursing” video Johns Hopkins produced was shared on social media platforms and earned nearly 50,000 views within the first two weeks (Kress et al., 2018, p. 391). This case study demonstrates that nurses are capable of creating a movement through social media to help tackle nursing misconceptions and stereotypes that the public may have. It is crucial for nurses to use their voice on these platforms because it can revolutionize the way people think about the field in a positive way. All of these social media platforms are highly accessible and are the easiest ways to maintain contact with others. If nurses use social media to educate the public on what the profession does, then these misconceptions can be reversed. Since so many Americans are getting information from social media, it is important that they are getting accurate research and news. In conclusion, TV shows and movies, like the blockbuster Meet the Parents, have shaped

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and reinforced the negative perceptions of nursing for generations which causes great harm to patient care. However, heavy media consumption has now shifted from TV and movies to social media and the nursing niche, identity on social media remains under explored, waiting to be redefined. Over time, nurses may be able to combat these misconceptions by taking steps to help the general public understand what nurses do; one of the ways to do so is that nurses should start having a stronger presence and influence on social media as releasing accurate information can help inform the public about the different roles nurses play. The media’s portrayal of nursing is crucial because it ultimately affects the patient in need of care. This is because the negative vision of nursing shown by the media gives the public a harmful perception of nurses and it will affect the amount of people going into the field and cause a nursing shortage which will hurt our communities in the long run. If we do not have enough nurses, then the current nurses will have to work longer hours and more often. Long work hours increase the risk for reduced performance on the job and increase fatigue-related errors which will harm the patients. Without a positive perception, nursing hinders itself from exercising the most excellent patient care necessary to heal our injured and sick back to health so we may have a great and healthy nation.

References Black. (2016). Professional Nursing Concepts & Challenges. Shearer, E. (2018, December 10). Social media outpaces print newspapers in the U.S. as a news source. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/10/social-mediaoutpaces-print-newspapers-in-the-u-s-as-a-news-source/

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Perrin, A., & Kumar, M. (2019, July 25). About three-in-ten U.S. adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2019/07/25/americans-going-online-almost-constantly/ Anderson, M., & Perrin, A. (2019, April 10). Share of U.S. adults using social media, including Facebook, is mostly unchanged since 2018. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/10/share-of-u-s-adults-using-social-mediaincluding-facebook-is-mostly-unchanged-since-2018/ Kress, D., Godack, C. A., Berwanger, T. L., & Davidson, P. M. (2018). The new script of nursing: using social media and advances in communication - to create a contemporary image of nursing. Contemporary Nurse, 54(4-5), 388–394. https://doi.org/10.1080/10376178.2018.1537720...