Professional Images in Nursing Discussion
Question Description
Patients and the public perceive nurses to be caring women who tend to the basic needs of patients while they are in the hospital, administering medications, making beds and assisting the doctors. (Huston, 2020, p. 335) Unfortunately the many important roles that nurses play within the healthcare field are lost in the stereotypical depictions portrayed over the course of many years. I personally do not think that any of the nurses currently depicted in the media truly represent the actual impact that nurses have. The typical persona of a nurse in the media is at the bedside, providing emotional support and direct patient care, nursing is just so much more than this. Nurses are in research, politics, quality and informatics, they are in leadership positions guiding policy and in the boardroom making critical, strategic decisions. While bedside nursing is a critical function within the profession it does not encompass all that nurses do to promote patient care.
Ensuring that nurses display a professional image is an important aspect of increasing the respect and power within the profession. The past practice of nurses wearing a white uniform solidified many of the negative stereotypes that we are trying to dispel. The white uniform magnified the belief that nurses were subservient to physicians. Today’s practice of nurses wearing white coats and business attire while in roles outside of the bedside areas levels the playing field and allows nurses to be seen as equals to the physician and business leaders within their organizations. In my current role I wear dress clothes on a regular basis. I am in high level meetings with other leaders and projecting a professional image allows me to gain the respect of those around the table. I understand that by presenting myself in a professional manner, including the clothes that I choose to wear, allows me to be taken seriously and for my ideas to be valued by my colleagues.
Huston, C. J. (2020). Professional images in nursing: challenges and opportunities. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer.
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Collapse SubdiscussionNancy Karas
Nancy Karas
YesterdayJul 7 at 1:23pmManage Discussion Entry
Kristen and class,Great post! I agree about the current role of nurses played on TV does not properly represent what an actual nurse does or the importance in their role in the healthcare setting. Nurses today are allowed to wear colored scrub uniforms according to their policy at the place of employment; patterned scrubs support individualism but can also be seen by the public as unprofessional. White uniforms along with nursing caps worn in the past are symbolic of what many believe a nurse should look like; today nurses are not “cookie cutter” females but any individual who wants to care for the sick and make a difference. “The reality is every nurse controls the image of nursing” (Houston, 2017). Professionalism comes in many different ways from the clothes you wear, how you carry yourself and to the way you care for your patients; gender or race it should not matter.Huston, C. Professional Issues in Nursing. [Bookshelf Ambassadored]. Retrieved from https://ambassadored.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781975140366/
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