Undoubtedly you've seen the Nurse Jackie ads occupying every sidebar and banner ad on the Internet. Perhaps you've read my previous posts about the inadequacies of the popular media in representing nurses. All of those less-than-completely-truthful rearrangements of electrons notwithstanding, I'm here to say this:
Showtime GETS it!
Showtime may have exhausted their advertising budget promoting Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie, but I'm not ashamed to report that it worked on me. I watched the pilot the first time I could find it (here, by the way), and I was more than pleased, despite the dissapointment of others.
Edie Falco's burned-out, capable, smart, deeply flawed Nurse Jackie is enough to make my community college nursing instructors turn in their graves (or shake a wrinkled finger, at least those who are still alive). She's screwing a pharmacist and talking back to snotty doctors, and then there's that little pain pill addiction thing. Fittingly, the meticulous Jackie opens a capsule of God-knows-what, counts out precisely 16 granules ("no more, no less"), and snorts them to get her through the day in spite of back pain (A.K.A. the nurse's curse) and as-yet-untold psychic pain.
Nurse Jackie's hospital is old, dark, religiously-affiliated and a little scary. Gigantic, vaguely Biblical figures painted on walls loom over Jackie and her nurse friend on breaks, threatening to swallow them up in the bureaucracy and powerlessness nurses fight daily in health care. This point is driven home when an administrator rebukes Jackie for working over 12 hours at a stretch, then asks her to work a double on Monday. I would have laughed, except it's the truth.
Plenty of nursing groups are up in arms about this show, including the American Nurses Association. "It's unprofessional!" "It's just another distorted image of nurses!" "We have a shortage, you idiots!" they cry. The professor in me would just like to tell the ANA this:
Dear ANA, perhaps you are unaware that we do not have a shortage of people who want to be nurses; we do have a shortage of educators and its cause is a shortage of money. Almost 40,000 qualified aspiring nursing students are turned away yearly. In light of these facts, please explain your argument that the image of nurses in the media is harming recruitment into our profession. I expect a double-spaced APA- formatted 5-page paper by Monday. Include suitable references.Frankly, I think some people will never be satisfied. Characters MUST be flawed to be interesting; an icon of professional perfection cannot carry the burden of being a major comic-dramatic character week after week. Perfection is too simple; perfection is downright BORING. So Nurse Jackie saves lives, screws a coworker, snorts pain pills, tells off stupid interns, acts with great compassion and tenderness and flagrantly violates the ANA Code of Ethics in the course of a typical day. And that's why she rocks.
I haven't seen TNT's HawthoRNe yet, but I hear Jada Pinkett's another tough, smart, imperfect, unconventional nurse. And, no, I didn't hear that from the American Nurses Association.
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Comments
The part of me that's isn't cheap wants to subscribe, too, just to see Nurse Jackie.
And I know for a fact that the shortage of nurses is due to a shortage of educational facilities/openings. My co worker's daughter has been on a wait-list for two years. Luckily, back home, my cousin's daughters have all three gotten through or are going through their educational process.
Nursing is a hard profession, doesn't get the respect it deserves, and is underpaid. Many nurses are smarter than the doctors they work with, and they certainly spend a hell of a lot more time with patients.
What I love about the show is the dialogue. I try to memorize lines because they're so good, and then two minutes later, there's another great line.
As for the drug addiction? I hate to say it, but yes, medical professionals get hooked on drugs. The fact that Jackie's addiction is due to a back injury (very common among nurses) seems realistic to me, and the way she controls the dose she allows herself while working speaks to the type of control she's trying to exert in an uncontrollable world.
So count me as a huge fan of the show.
After over 25 years working both as a hands on nurse and in administration, Nurse Jackie is a huge breath of fresh air into the reality of my profession. Edie Falco's portrail of a nurse is far more realistic than any of the moronic, codependent vixens one sees on the other hospital drama TV series. The only way I can personally hang on to what little is left of my sanity and compassion is by working nights and weekends to stay as far away from the admistrative types that I often feel like I want to bite like a wolverine on methamphetamines.
The ANA should be lauding Showtime and Edie Falco for a truly realistic portrayal of nursing, rather than insisting that good (i.e. professional) nurses put up with all of the KRAP in their workplace with a loving smile, endless pleasant platitudes, and a corncob up their a**. And now I need to end this in order to pop a xanax and wash it down with a nice glass of orange juice and vodka before rushing off to work.
My husband recently went to nursing school, so I feel as if I went through nursing school by proxy (I got to edit all the papers, do all the childcare, and listen to all the moaning from him and his fellow students). (Did I mention I HATE the APA format?)
I agree, there's a teaching shortage, not a nursing student shortage. And yes, the teaching shortage has everything to do with money. My husband couldn't figure out why anyone would want to be a nursing educator when they make significantly less money than a full-time hospital staff nurse. And it takes more education (usually a masters, sometimes a PhD). It also takes money to build more labs, hire more nurses to oversee students during their clinicals, and on and on. Take a look at funding for your local community college or university in Anywhere, USA, and there's the answer.
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