Image Of A Nurse

Image of Nursing

If the only work a nurse does actually coincided with the image of a "being that comes to you in your darkest

hour" or as a guardian angel, then patients would never make it out of the hospital. This article made some very good points as to where the image of nursing has been and where it is going. Sure nurses are caregivers, people who have possibly felt a draw towards the profession. But to be that caregiver takes a lot more then possessing the desire to help people. You need to know exactly how to care for those who are ill. I hate the fact that doctors are the one who are perceived as having all the knowledge. I'm sorry, but I have not worked this hard in nursing school and sacrificed my social life for this long to have the people think that I give the back rubs and the doctor diagnoses, takes care of, and heals the patient. I think that a lot of agencies and hospitals try to recruit people to the nursing profession by telling them that nurses are angles with a lantern in the dark and that people will love you if you are a nurse. I don't believe that that is what the image of a nurse should be and that by continuing to portray nurses like this we are taking a step backwards in the advancement of the profession. I believe that a nurse should be portrayed as a healthcare provider. Someone who has worked to get where they are and now has the knowledge to help bring a person back to health.

At the same time I don't think that we should completely lose that perception as caring for people just to care for them, but society needs to know what else we do.

Something that has always bothered me had been the type of person a nurse is shown to be. The majority of the ads I have seen of nurses have been your typical white picket fence suburban soccer mom. Why have I not seen an ad with a nurse that has a full arm of