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The Ones That Did Us Justice and the Ones That Did Us In: 2004 Golden Lamp Awards
The Ones That Did Us Justice and the Ones That Did Us In: 2004 Golden Lamp Awards
As Hollywood holds one award night after another, the nursing profession is honoring their own version of winners and losers in the category of public portrayal. The Center for Nursing Advocacy has announced their 2004 Golden Lamp Awards list. The list contains this year's best and worst portrayals of the nursing industry.
Recognized depictions included every type of media, worldwide - from print to television. And in today's society it's no secret that we are heavily influenced by what we see and hear, especially when it come to healthcare. Research shows that the news and entertainment media greatly affect public views and actions, so improving nursing's media image is a critical step in resolving the nursing shortage that plagues the world.
According to the Center's press release, they identified several patterns in this year's list. "Most of the best depictions of nursing we saw appeared in the print press," said Center Executive Director Sandy Summers. "On the other hand, a disproportionate number of the worst depictions were in the influential television medium, especially serial dramas from Hollywood."
Also recognized by the Center was the fact that physicians created a high percentage of the worst portrayals of nursing. "The apparent lack of understanding we've seen among physicians is unfortunate, and it underlines the need to educate them about nursing, so we can collaborate more effectively," noted Summers. On a more obvious note the Center went on to say that the some of the best accounts of nursing were created by nurses themselves, or by journalists willing to consult nursing experts.
Top FIVE Best Media Portrayals of Nursing
"Is There a Doctor in the House?" Andrew Blackman, The Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2004. This piece explores the increasingly important role nurse practitioners are playing in primary care and other areas. The story explains that NP's are not only quicker and cheaper to train than physicians, but their holistic, preventative approach maybe uniquely suited to care for an aging population.
"The Rookies," episode of Lifeline: The Nursing Diaries, Producers Richard Kahn and Linda Martin, Discovery Health Channel and CBS News Productions, November 2004. A three part documentary that followed the work of two nurses at two prominent hospitals, Boston's Massachusetts General and New York's NewYork-Presbyterian. It was an engaging work that deftly showed the autonomous nursing actions that the media often ignores or assigns to physicians, including life-saving interventions, patient education and family support.
"Help Us," Elizabeth Ochs, RN, Salon.com, February 5, 2004. A powerful online account of San Francisco school nurse Elizabeth Ochs that detailed her efforts to manage a wide range of serious health and social problems among elementary school students. This piece underlined both the serious skill required of school nurses and the dangerous nurse understaffing many schools now face.
Overall coverage of nursing issues, The Guardian (U.K), 2004. (March 3, March 10, April 7, August 27, November 19, December 9) This year this print publication ran many fair and interesting stories that told readers about the state of nursing both in the U.K. and abroad.
"An Exodus of African Nurses Put Infants and the Ill in Peril," Celia Dugger, The New York Times, July 12, 2004. Dugger described the staggering overall depletion of health resources in the AIDS-ravaged nation, where more registered nurses have left to work abroad in the last four years than remain in the public hospitals and clinics that serve most of the country.
Top FIVE Worst Media Portrayals of Nursing
Overall failure to cover nursing aspects of healthcare stories, The New York Times, 2004. With some notable exceptions (as mentioned above), the "paper of record" compiled a record of ignoring nursing in stories, columns and op-eds that should have included significant discussion of nursing and reflected input from nursing experts.
Five episodes of ER: "Touch and Go," written by Mark Morocco, MD, January 8, 2004; "NICU," written by Lisa Zwerling, MD, January 15, 2004 ; "Try Carter," written by R. Scott Gemmill, October 14, 2004; "An Intern's Guide to the Galaxy," written by Lisa Zwerling, MD November 4, 2004; "A Shot in the Dark," written by Joe Sachs, MD. Though every episode of ER broadcast during 2004 continued the show's traditional role as the world's most influential purveyor of the handmaiden stereotype of nursing," the advocacy center said, these five episodes' were some of the worst. These stories particularly shunned nurses' clinical training and portrayed them as love interests.
"Discovery Health Channel Medical Honors," Discovery Health Channel, July 8, 2004. A two-hour special hosted by Regis Philbin that saluted 13 "medical heroes" for "bringing awareness to many challenging health and medical issues of our time." Not a single one of the nation's 2.7 million nurses made the cut. The 13 that were honored included eight physicians, a bioscience researcher, a nonprofit leader, a political science professor, a health system CEO, and an advertising executive, the advocacy center said of the show, which aired July 8.
Series Premiere of "House MD," written by David Shore, Executive Producers Paul Attanasio, Katie Jacobs, David Shore and Bryan Singer, Fox, November 16, 2004. Sited mainly for the fact that the show's key premise is itself a damaging lie: that a team composed entirely of physicians would rove the hospital providing all significant care to desperately ill patients, as nurses and other professionals stand quietly in the background or simply disappear.
"The Unclean," episode of "Medical Investigation," written by Mark Dodson, Executive Producers Laurence Andries, Bob Cooper, Scott Vila, Marc Buckland, NBC, December 3, 2004. This episode puts a small focus on nurses - as serial killing angels of death! Overall, the episode was yet another regressive blow to the nursing profession from Hollywood.
To read the entire list of Golden Lamp Awards and to find out more about the individual winners and losers mentioned above, click here.
