Current Issues in Nursing

This article discusses the effects of media on the nursing profession and the portrayal of nurses in film and television. It also explores the challenges and risks of social media usage by nurses.

Running head; Current Issues in Nursing 1
Current Issues in Nursing
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Current Issues in Nursing 2
Nursing is a profession that involves the caring and supporting patients, families,
relatives and communities. Nurses are mostly found in health centers where they are assigned
various responsibilities that involves treating a patient. In modern day world, nursing has become
a very important part of the health care to deal with the increased number of patients and helping
in treating the curable and incurable diseases that are so common. Despite being an important
aspect of the health care department, people using the media have different opinions on the
nursing profession. The opinions from various medias including social media, film and television
media and the one to one interaction has raised various issues that has affected the nursing
profession in one way or another. In this article we will discuss on how various sources have
analyzed the effects of the media on nurses.
People are entitled to their different views on various subjects. Nursing is also not
different since various people have different views of the field. Being a profession, it has both its
advantages and disadvantages. In modern world, social media has become one of the influential
and key aspect of communication where people raise their different opinions regarding different
subjects. Using social media has affected nursing both positively and negatively from the use by
both nurses and other people. Barry, Hardiker (2012) analyzes on how social media has helped
the advancing of the nursing practice and potential risks that comes with the same and gives
advice and insight to nurses on best skills on how to cope with social media to their advantage.
The scholar journal gives a global aspect of the social media influence to nurses and their
profession.

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With the rising number of people using the internet, it has increased the number
of social media usage where user generated contents are shared. Social media gives nurses the
platform to communicate in a personal and professional level where they are able to educate and
influence other people. Interaction and direct communication allows users of the internet and
social media share their issues and get an immediate response from the nurses which may turn
out to be of great help. Also the sharing of experiences works as a positive impact to the people
where a nurse can give their experience on how they dealt with a given problem or a certain
patient giving their own experience on how they got help from a health center. Social media also
acts as a platform where promotion and awareness of current issues affecting the community can
be sent and received by a large population.
Social media also provides a platform for nurses where they can interact with
their fellow nurses and update each other on the recent developments on issues related to health
care. Despite social media having an impact on the nursing profession, it also has its challenges
and risks that cannot be ignored. Such issues include the internet users not trusting health
information from the internet which mostly is unreliable especially if the information is not
moderated. Also, some of the nursing professionals tend to have unprofessional behavior through
social media which leads to a negative impact to the health cares and also to the nursing
profession in general. The increase use of social media is therefore a potential for both a positive
and negative impact to the nurses and the nursing professional. Usage of social media should
therefore not just be taken for granted with guidelines and polices set for both individual and
personal level and also professional and institutional usage of social media.

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On an online article from the Medical Bag website they take a dig on nursing
issues specifically on how they are portrayed by film and television media. The media has a
create influence on people since its both a source of entertainment and also provides information
to its users. Therefore, their portrayal of nurses has a huge impact on the society view of nurses
which also affects recruitment to the same. The author gives an example on how in the past
nursing was used as a symbols of heroes who were there to take care of the soldiers during war.
The nurses were also sympathetic characters. With these perception of nurses, it created a certain
thought implemented in the mind of people on how nurses were compassionate and also a
champion for the female gender making them admire to join the profession. The media in this
case did a great job in giving the nursing profession the light as a desirable occupation which
created a positive impact.
Despite the portray in the past, television films and shows currently have changed
and damaged the nursing profession a great deal in general. The change has resulted to a
negative impact to nurses since now nurses are shown as insignificant part of the health care
facilities. The author points out nurses in shows and movies are portrayed as sexual objects and
servants to the male doctors and also giving them roles that are demeaning. Currently, the
perception of nurses has immensely changed and now are viewed as health care practitioners
without skills and only act as their job is helping doctors while in real since the nurses do the
heavy job in a health care center that involves caring and offering the treatments recommended
by doctors. The demeaning perception towards nurses is highly to blame from the television and
film media for the cause of change of respect towards the perception. The authors give several
examples on how various shows depict nurses as just background actors in shows with less roles.

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To change this perception of nurses, the media should change its view towards the
nursing career by offering them the attention equal to the actual work they do in the health
sector. The media may be the cause of elevating the status of nursing profession by making it
regarded as an important job but it has also resulted to demeaning the same profession it gave the
attention. This show how important the media is in the influence of the nursing perception which
affects the occupation depending on how the nurses are portrayed. Regarding this, before
portraying nurses in any way, the authors of the script should first do a research and find the
exact work the nurses do then decide on how they want to portray the nurses.
Sandy, Harry, (2014) did a research on how the media has effect on nurses and
nursing as a profession. Despite nurses being described as caring and kind, their value in society
is diminishing. The shortage of nurses in health centers is noticeable which means that few
people enroll in the nursing career. Nowadays the finances in health sector has reduced and
nursing treated as a minor job it is less regarded. The article provides a deep understanding on
how health facilities are ignoring the nurses. Various factors have caused this diminishing value
of nurse’s despite being a profession that requires professional and well educated people. They
include the gender bias which depicts nursing as a female occupation which makes men decline
to join the occupation despite being an occupation for everyone. Another reason is always view
nurses as just an occupation that deals with going to zones with war and also caring for patients
with diseases with no cure making them vulnerable to the diseases such as Ebola. This reason
creates fear among some people who are willing to join the profession but too afraid to take the
risk that comes with the occupation.

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The article gives an explained example on how the shortage of nurses affected the
containment of patients with Ebola in Africa. Most people who were involved in the survey
explained how the entertainment industry mainly Hollywood has resulted to a negative impact to
the occupation by viewing nurses as unskilled, handmaidens, losers and full of flaws and errors.
Nurses should try to help the people understand and improve their profession and also people
should interact more with nurses and not just follow what they are told about the occupation.
Currently the information about nurses contained in all media sources from
journals, articles, books and the internet provide a negative review on how the public views the
nursing profession. The negative review seems to have resulted to fewer number of students
enrolling in the nursing profession which has led to the reduced number of nurses in the health
facilities. All the parties involved such as government, media and health facilities should come
up with ways that will help improve the nursing sector such as considering nursing as a high
regarded profession by treating it with great importance.
The initial perception of nurses as caring and kind should be brought back by
educating and showing their patients they are actually the same nurses that they highly regarded
and saved lives of people when needed. Calling physicians doctors has also been pointed out
since it makes them look like they are the only professionals who are educated in the medical
center. The public is also advised not to just view nurses as they are perceived but also make an
effort of learning what nurses are exactly like by interacting with them.

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With all those factors influencing the perception the public has on nursing, it is
important to know the impact that nursing has in the society and how it cannot be taken for
granted. By identifying the factors leading to a negative perception of the profession, nursing
sector has to try and provide a positive and alternative thought that really gives the general view
that will lead to positive. The perception of the public is very important since the public views
affects the profession in the way they view it. All parties involved should work together to
improve the nursing sector in all possible ways since the sector has been experiencing problems
that include shortage of staff to low income for the nurses and lots of demanding sacrifice and
work less appreciated as it should always be.

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References.
Barry, J., Hardiker, N., (September 30, 2012) "Advancing Nursing Practice Through Social
Media: A Global Perspective" OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in NursingVol. 17,
No. 3, Manuscript 5.
Medical Bag Website, (May 2, 2014) “How Nurses Are Portrayed in Film and Television”:
Online article on issues faced by nursing practitioners. Retrieved from:
https://www.medicalbag.com/home/specialties/nurse-practitioners/how-nurses-are-portrayed-
in-film-and-television/
Sandy, S., Harry, J., S.,( October 22, 2014) “Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nursing
Puts Us All at Risk.”: Online blog with survey done on media portray of nurses.
Retrieved from: https://blog.oup.com/2014/10/