Outrage is Not a Strategy

It happened again last week: A public figure made an uninformed comment about what nurses do (or don’t do). Washington State Senator Maureen Walsh (R) —debating on a proposed bill that would give nurses uninterrupted meals and breaks at work and protect them from mandatory overtime—commented that nurses in some hospitals were “probably playing cards.” Her gaffe raised the collective ire of this nation’s more than 3 million nurses—and launched a thousand memes and another social media hashtag campaign (#nursesplayingcards).

Senator Walsh has since publicly apologized, and even offered to shadow a nurse for a shift. Crisis averted, right? 

Hardly. Remember Joy Behar’s observation about a Miss America contestant’s “doctor’s stethoscope”? Lots of furor, followed by a quick apology, led to collective amnesia—and a lot of missed opportunities for conversations that might prove more helpful in dispelling public misperceptions about nurses’ roles and immense value. Doubt it? Then you haven’t watched a medical drama recently. (I’m looking at you, New Amsterdam.) 

While I lay part of the blame squarely at the feet of popular media and journalists—who rarely solicit feedback from nurses, who are the backbone of this country’s health care—I also hold myself and my fellow nurses accountable for this untenable misunderstanding of our profession. Why do we wait until a crisis to help people understand what it is we do, both inside the patient’s room, the clinic, and in the community, too? 

Put more succinctly: How do we, as nurses, get better at consistently telling our own stories? How do we stop this endless cycle of misrepresentation and outraged correction, followed by a return to complacency?

I asked Marion Leary, director of innovation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and Rebecca Love, co-founder of SONSIEL, for their thoughts on this.

Marion said:

As nurses, I firmly believe we have a responsibility to begin to illuminate what it is we do on a daily basis. The breadth, depth, and experience of the profession of nursing is unparalleled, and so much more than what is portrayed on television and in the movies. Based on that stereotypical narrative, it really is no surprise that people do not fully grasp the complexity of the field of nursing science. We need to put ourselves out there and make our work more visible if we want to see more accurate representations of our profession—a profession that is tremendously versatile and diverse. Yes, we are at the bedside and in the hospital, but we are also in the research lab and in the boardroom, in the classroom and in startups, out in the community, and in Congress. Yes, nurse are first and foremost clinicians, but we are also educators, innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers. And yes, we are experts in health and health care, but we are also experts in history, policy, forensics, informatics, and much, much more. It is up to us as nurses, and collectively as a profession, to control our own narrative so that the public, along with journalists and senators, fully understand what it means to be a nurse. So let’s begin to amplify nursing starting today. We can no longer wait and react to yet another misrepresentation of our profession. 

Rebecca said:

As I watched (in silent fury) the clip of Senator Walsh, my mind went to the irreparable damage such an uneducated statement will have on the social conscious and unconscious of nursing in our society.  

As my nursing colleagues Beth and Marion so eloquently stated, nursing has a serious public relations problem. For years, nurses have been portrayed less than positively by the media, news, and now even our policymakers. But because nurses have not addressed these portrayals with strong opposition, calling for more accurate representation, we have gravely undermined this great profession. Studies show nursing is facing a shortage of 1.2 million nurses in the United States, and with 57 percent of new nursing graduates leaving the bedside within two years of practice, the profession is in serious trouble.  

It’s been said that “drastic times call for drastic measures,” and perhaps this statement by Senator Walsh was exactly what we needed to spark drastic measures and redefine the conversation about and image of nurses globally in health care. Outrage isn’t a strategy, but action is, and that’s why Beth, Marion and I came together to set the record straight on nursing. 

Let’s be clear about the role of nurses: It is nurses who keep patients alive the 23 hours a day when a physician is not at the bedside. Every day, nurses manage hundreds of thousands of dollars of highly complex medical equipment, medication, and technology to keep patients alive—often without a break; research has shown nurses walk 4 to 5 miles a shift, twice the distance most Americans walk in a day. We do this as nurses because we dedicated our lives to caring for those who cannot care for themselves—and often we cross the threshold to care for those many in society would not care for at all. To be a nurse is to be an expert in keeping patients alive and seeing them home safe to their families.  

We encourage our fellow nurses to take action to share their value in health and health care in all forums, portray the best of who you are and the nursing profession. I think it is the greatest profession on earth. This won’t be the last you’ll hear from us. We’ve decided to deal our own deck of cards in the image game in nursing, and we deal to win. Look forward to hearing more from the three of us again as we work with our fellow nurses and allies to redefine the future of what’s possible in nursing!

I’m so grateful to know nurses like Marion and Rebecca—nurses who are thinking differently about and speaking up for the profession.

Fellow nurses, please join us! Share in the comments how you are speaking up to let people know about the many roles we play in our communities—or, better yet, reach out to your local leaders or journalists and let them know. What other ideas do you have? We’d love to hear from you!