Every year, the Center for Nursing Advocacy (http://www.nursingadvocacy.org) announces its "Golden Lamp" awards for the best and worst media portrayals of nurses during the past year. This year's list, the 5th annual, includes influential media from television shows and movies to news reports on the nursing crisis in Africa.
Among the "worst," award recipients were:
* "Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice," "House," and "Scrubs" for their grossly inaccurate physician-centric vision of care;
* Kelly Ripa of "LIVE with Regis and Kelly" for promising to be her cohost's "sponge bath nurse";
* Will Shortz, puzzle master for the New York Times, for a crossword clue stating that ICU nurses were mere "helpers";
* New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine for suggesting that physicians alone saved his life following his near-fatal car crash; and
* members of the UK Parliament for posing in and promoting a naughty nurse calendar.
The best depictions of nursing continue to appear in the print media, according to Center for Nursing Advocacy Executive Director Sandy Summers. Specific pieces in The Wall Street Journal, The Star-Ledger (Newark), and on WBUR, a Boston NPR affiliate, were among the best. Movies were a mixed year for nursing. The Center gave the film "Atonement" an "Honorable Mention" for its limited but nurse-centered depiction of World War II healthcare. But the group said that soccer movie "Gracie" was one of the worst because of its suggestion that the heroic lead character, unlike her mother, could avoid being stuck in a dead-end loser job like nursing.
The Center noted that, as usual, many of the least accurate and most damaging depictions were in the influential television medium. Summers said that ABC's new "Private Practice" included prime time's least knowledgeable major nurse character in midwifery student Dell Parker. Overall, the Center found that "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" continued to be the worst offenders. Summers denounces their portrayals of nurses as brainless servants, while all important care, most of which nurses do in real life, is provided by heroic physicians. Depictions of nurses in these globally popular shows contribute to the undervaluing of nurses.