The invisibility of the nursing profession in the media

Teresa Blasco Hernández

Abstract

Every day we wake up to various news items related to healthcare professionals and specifically to nursing professionals, a profession that is currently much more visible in the media than in the past. In general, these news items reflect the importance of nursing, but is the image they convey really true?

Firstly, it is striking that the term "nurse" tends to include various groups related to the profession, even though they belong to other professional categories. This use of the term shows the social meaning attributed to the word "nurse", the value and place that society attributes to it, and which the media help to perpetuate through stereotyped images. Generally, nurses are identified and likened to dedication, affection, sacrifice, sympathy, angelic, altruism, although sometimes they are also identified with stereotyped images of past centuries as secretaries or doctors' assistants.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to a new stereotype: the "superheroine" nurse. This is a tribute that Bansky makes to health professionals, in which a child appears to leave several Spiderman or Batman dolls in the garbage can, to opt for a nurse with a superheroine cape. Although this recognition and support for nurses is welcome, it still reflects a non-real image, a fictitious stereotype that shows her as a heroine.

All these stereotypes are very dangerous and only perpetuate an unrealistic image of the profession, with very negative consequences for the profession. For example, the profession has had little involvement in decision-making in the context of the current pandemic.

It is a highly visible but deeply unknown profession. Society is still unaware of its field of responsibility, its space for autonomy and initiative in the care of individuals, the family and the community. It does not know that it is a profession that performs its own functions independently of other professionals and that, although it works in a team, its functions do not derive from the orders of other professionals, such as physicians, but from the care needs of the person who is the focus of its attention.

The media, and therefore society, are also unaware of the training required to become a nurse. Many changes have taken place in recent decades, such as the restructuring of university studies, with the introduction of undergraduate and postgraduate (master's and doctoral) degrees. So that nowadays the number of nurses who are doctors is increasing every day, an aspect that is totally ignored in the media.

It is necessary that the media, cinema, television, painting, children's and adult literature give a real and accurate image of the profession, according to the XXI century and leave aside labels and stereotypes far removed from the reality of the nursing profession.

Teresa Blasco Hernández.