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News on Nursing in the Media

October 29, 2017 edition

All Types Welcome . . . to stereotype nursing!

Lionsgate exploits nursing, again, to promote blood drive for new film Jigsaw

Lionsgate has promoted its popular Saw horror film franchise with blood drives, using posters exploiting the naughty and battle-axe stereotypes of nursing. For the new series entry Jigsaw, which opened Friday October 27, 2017, the posters push gender boundaries as a way of protesting the restrictions on blood donations by those in the LGBTQ community. But the imagery still undermines the very nurses who use the blood collected to save lives, because it presents "nurses" as exotic gender objects, some with sexual and/or unsettling elements, and most of the images can't be reconciled with an ungendered modern health profession. Read more... and click here to send a letter to ask those responsible to stop using nursing stereotypes to collect blood! Thank you!

My Hospital? It's all physicians, elixirs, and panaceas!

Special review: Cherrypick's game promotes all-physician narrative of hospital care

October 2017 - The premise of the My Hospital phone game is that after you graduate from medical school, your wealthy grandfather gives you a brand-new hospital to run and operate as a manager. The game introduction specifically states that "You will need doctors to cure patients," which fails to convey that nurses are crucial to running a hospital and you actually need them, too. In fact, there aren't any nurse characters present in the entire game, at least up to Level 7, where I stopped playing. And the woman in purple in the image to the right, who some people might think is a nurse? She is a receptionist. Read more...and write to the creators of this app to ask that they do better...

No nurses, no care?

NBC's The Night Shift offered a very limited vision of nursing

3 nurses on The Night ShiftNBC's summer hospital drama The Night Shift was canceled earlier in October 2017 after four seasons, but the show reached millions and remains available for streaming. It featured intense trauma scenes at a San Antonio public emergency department, sentient major nurse character Kenny Fournette, and a few minor nurse characters who actually spoke. But overall the show reinforced the prevailing Hollywood narrative of hospital care as a physician endeavor. Explore two of the show's key seasons and ask the creators to do better in the future! Sign our petitionSee our analyses of Season 3 and Season 1, and please click here to sign our letter, or use our form to send one of your own. Thank you!

Nurse Ratched, Sarah PaulsonTake Action!
Please sign and circulate the petition to stop Netflix's Nurse Ratched show.

We simply cannot do this without your help--and we need way more help! Nursing really needs to deal with this now before it becomes a show.

Over 1,700 supporters have signed our petition to cancel the new young Nurse Ratched show planned by Ryan Murphy (Glee) and Netflix, but to really have an impact we need your voice! Please sign the petition and ask all your colleagues and students to sign and share it. Please ask your school, organization or workplace to share this. Also, please call Jonathan Friedland, Chief Communications Officer at Netflix, at 1-310-734-2958 and let him know your concerns. Thank you very much!!

Press coverage:

MedPage Today article"Superior Care or Marketing Gimmick?"

MedPage Today piece quotes Truth director on pros and cons of Magnet program

October 13, 2017 - Today Alexandria Bachert published a strong piece in MedPage Today about the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Magnet hospital program that relied on several quotes from Truth director Sandy Summers. The piece explored the complaints of many that the Magnet program, which is meant to assure the nursing quality of a hospital, has often been used mainly as a marketing tool and does not reflect a true commitment to good nursing. In her comments, Summers noted that some hospitals have treated the Magnet designation mainly as "window dressing," regressing once they get it, but that hospitals that go through the process in good faith can create a stronger nursing culture and better patient care. We thank Bachert and MedPage Today. Please click here to see the article (we appear about half way down).

Sandy SummersHaving an event? Book Sandy today!

Let Sandy Summers empower your nurses and help them fully embrace their autonomy!

Patients deserve better protection. Let Sandy help your nurses and students fully embrace their autonomy to strengthen nursing care, reduce errors and improve care! Sandy just got back from speaking in Washington DC, Houston, New York, Iowa, and Vancouver, and gave the graduation speech at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. She speaks widely to a variety of international nursing groups. Click here to see details and book her today!

Publications:

Think about the future

New international text Nurses and Nursing leads off with chapter by Truth leaders

The exciting new textbook Nurses and Nursing: The Person and the Profession includes a chapter on nursing's image by Truth leaders Sandy Summers and Harry Jacobs Summers. Edited by Pádraig Ó Lúanaigh, RN, EdD, the thought-provoking new textbook from Routledge "draws on international contributors with a range of backgrounds to explore, engage with and challenge readers in understanding the many aspects and elements that inform and influence contemporary nursing practice." Our chapter is "Nursing's public image: Toward a professional future." We thank Dr. Lúanaigh for the opportunity to be a part of this important new project. Please consider this book for your classes in professionalism, nursing and society, and nursing leadership. Click here to request a free copy for review now! See more about the book here...

Saving LivesImagine a world where nurses were fully empowered to protect patients

Get an author-signed copy of Saving Lives for you or a friend

Saving Lives is the transformative book acclaimed by nurses, nursing leaders, scholars, and the media. It can help your friends, colleagues, and students be the strong nurses our profession needs to protect patients from errors, injuries, and disease. See praise for Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nursing Puts Us All at Risk by leaders in nursing and the media as well as the awards it has earned, including three Book of the Year awards from the American Journal of Nursing and an award from Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society of Nursing. The updated second edition from Oxford University Press is now available! All donations and royalties go directly to support The Truth About Nursing, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Thank you for your support!

Click here to order now!

Please help the Truth help nursing!

It has taken us many months to transition our website to its new mobile format. We hope you enjoy the new look! After this long transition, we will be working hard to catch up on different fronts, and we would really appreciate your help. Here are just a few ways you can help us improve global health through better understanding of nursing:

We rely on your help to move forward on our mission. Thank you!


THE TRUTH ABOUT NURSING challenges stereotypes and educates the world about the value of nursing. Better understanding that nurses are autonomous, college-educated science professionals will strengthen nursing care, education and research, allowing nurses to save more lives.


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Please support The Truth About Nursing

We need your help so we can pursue this mission together. We would be very grateful if you could make a donation--even if it is $5, $10 or $25. Any amount would be so helpful. Please click here to donate. Thank you!




The Truth About Nursing is an international non-profit organization based in Baltimore that seeks to help the public understand the central role nurses play in health care. The Truth promotes more accurate media portrayals of nurses and greater use of nurses as expert sources. The group is led by Sandy Summers, co-author of Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All At Risk.


Educate the world!


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book cover, Saving lives

Get a copy of Saving Lives with every $30 donation!

Donate $30 to the Truth now, and we will send you a copy of our leaders' newly released book Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nursing Puts Us All at Risk. Both editions have won American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards and Saving Lives has also won an award from the international nursing honor society, Sigma Theta Tau. The book was written for nurses, the media, and members of the public around the world. Many nursing professors use it as a text to discuss nursing in society. The authors donate all royalties to the Truth About Nursing. Order today--paperback or digital--and we will send a copy out to you!