Calling for More Nurse Visibility

In STAT, Carole Myers published a First Opinion about how nurses were “missing in action” when it comes to being represented in the media. 

Despite outnumbering physicians 3 to 1, the Woodhull Study twenty years ago showed that only 4% of quotes in newspapers and 1% in weekly publications come from nurses, they appear in only 14% of the articles and are almost never included in photos.

Updated recently by Diana Mason and colleagues, the numbers are better today but only slightly and only for photos: 4%. They’re quoted less often: 2% of the time. They’re mentioned less often: in only 13% of articles. They're never sourced for health policy articles.

When asked, journalists say nurses are not viewed as experts, making it difficult to “sell” them as a source to editors. They also admit they don’t know what nurses do. This last point is an important one.

Nurses have transformed health care in many ways most of us will never know. What we do know will come from nurses who touched our lives directly – as when we, or someone we loved – needed hospital care.

Or, as in my case, when Guardian Nurse Healthcare Advocates helped save my mom’s life when the usual medical treatments were ineffective against the disease that felled her and they secured a place for her in a clinical study.

Even what we know from our own hospital care is limited, however.

Recently I learned what hospitalized patients never see: just how much nurses do when they’re not at our bedsides.

We conducted a NetworkSage analysis of the connections managed in a hospital and found that a nurse in a medical-surgical unit connects with 125 different “types” of people.

By “types” I mean people like: a patient’s family member, an attending physician, a hospitalist, a pharmacist, a lab technician, a chaplain, or patient's own clergy.

Since nurses care for more than one patient, that means she/he also interacts with multiple sets of family members, physicians and others. On any given day, a nurse can connect with upwards of 250 different people.

Even nurses who see this data are surprised. The reality of their workload - most of which is not at the patient's bedside - was “hiding in plain sight.”

“No wonder I go home so tired each night,” one said.

My ‘aha’ moment was this: I thought a nurse’s job was clinical. I was wrong.

A nurse's job is also management. And, the most difficult kind of management since few, if any, of the people report to the nurse. A nurse didn't hire the team. A nurse can’t fire them. 

Nurses might be “missing in action” in the media. Some hospitalized patients and family members might wonder why they’re “missing from bedsides.” The reality is quite different.

They're very much in action, working with a very large number of people within the hospital - and sometimes outside of it - to be sure patients get the care they need. 

A network Mind Map of the acute care nurse data is available, just be in touch with me via LinkedIn.