Health Medical Homework Help

Response to a question from previous discussion you did as well as one response to a peer:

1. Professor – Give an example of informal power a nurse can hold and how this can help in the positive outlook of nurses. Explain your response.

2. Robyn –

• Does media portrayal of nursing affect how patients perceive nurses as authority figures? Why or why not? Think about nursing stereotypes and discuss the ways you can influence the public image of nursing.

I do believe that the media plays a role in making some patients see nurses in a non authoritative role in the hospital. Even while in school, I have seen patients not think nurses know anything and believe that they are only there to change and clean them and bring their food. A study from 2018 shows that “Nurses remain invisible in health news media, despite their increasing levels of education, unique roles, and expertise” (Mason et al., 2018). I can agree that some patients think nurses are nothing more than simple people who do not have a say so in their care. While before I got into healthcare, I may not have known what exactly what all nurses do, I knew that they were more than what the media portrayed or even what they didn’t portray. You see it all the time in medical shows, commercials, movies, and news stories nurses are rarely even seen, while in real life we all know nurses are the glue that holds the hospitals together.

• Discuss the various roles nurses can play that support the real image of nursing. Think about community health care and preventive services for all, but especially the underserved.

I believe that supporting the nursing roles can include showing them in their real positions, not only simply collecting and making sure patients are comfortable, but also as an integral part of the decision making. Nurses are there every step of the way in a patient’s care, noticing their changes, building rapport, and providing comfort and care. All these roles are important to hospital flow. I also believe that there should be portrayal of nurses in administrative roles where they are providing input on how the nursing role can be done safer and in a hospital or health care center that care not only about patients but the staff and how they are treated. Nurses are not only the patient caregivers, but they are also decision makers, patient advocates, managers of care, teachers, and communicators between the patient, their families, and their doctor. If the media showed these roles, many people would find a better respect for what all nurses do and contribute to healthcare.

C. (2015, August 13). 6 Roles Nurses Play that Truly Make Them the Heart of Healthcare. James B. Goldberg & Associates. https://www.goldberglicensing.com/6-roles-nurses-p…

Mason, D. J., Nixon, L., Glickstein, B., Han, S., Westphaln, K., & Carter, L. (2018). The Woodhull Study Revisited: Nurses’ Representation in Health News Media 20 Years Later. Journal of nursing scholarship : an official publication of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, 50(6), 695–704. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12429