| A couple of years ago, Baltimore's Center for | | | | schedules, working 26 weekends and five |
| Nursing Advocacy started a letter-writing | | | | holidays a year. Nurses also face serious |
| campaign against NBC and the producers of ER. | | | | on-the-job risks, such as bloodborne |
| This group was protesting the episode where a | | | | pathogens, latex allergies and back injuries |
| central character, nurse Abby Lockhart | | | | from those long shifts pounding hospital |
| (actress Maura Tierney), chucked her nursing | | | | floors and doing more lifting with less help. |
| career to go to medical school. The Baltimore | | | | Isn't it ironic that the injured and disabled |
| group claims the TV show "is perpetuating | | | | are treating the sick? No wonder nursing |
| long-standing misrepresentations that are | | | | numbers are shrinking. |
| contributing to the nursing shortage." | | | | |
| | | | Speaking of disabilities, just look around at |
| Never mind the fact that ER - watched by 20 | | | | how many nurses smoke, drink and are |
| million viewers - is far from reality | | | | overweight. Such symptoms of intense stress |
| television. The notion that the show is | | | | occur when people have too little time to |
| contributing to the nursing shortage is | | | | properly care even for themselves. |
| simply untrue. This TV program could depict | | | | |
| nursing as the most glamorous career on the | | | | Nurses are finding their own answers to these |
| planet and real nurses would still be leaving | | | | dilemmas. According to an American Nursing |
| their hospital jobs in droves. | | | | Association (ANA) poll, almost 19% of nurses |
| | | | do not work in clinical nursing. A study by |
| Nurses are quitting because they are | | | | the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy |
| understaffed, underappreciated, underinsured, | | | | Research reveals more than 20% of hospital |
| underpaid and under-you-name-it. Most nurses | | | | registered nurses plan to leave their jobs in |
| complain about the lack of respect from | | | | the next year. |
| doctors. Sure you hear about record-breaking | | | | |
| salaries and bonuses, but compared to whose | | | | The significant development is not the fact |
| record? At an average pay of $22 an hour, | | | | that nurses are leaving or even why they're |
| nurses are still among the lowest-paid | | | | leaving - that's obvious. The news is where |
| professionals in this country. | | | | they are going. When nurses aren't valued in |
| | | | one arena, they take their nursing education |
| Managed care is another reason nurses are | | | | and expertise and go elsewhere. They develop |
| leaving the bedside. It goes against | | | | new careers outside traditional healthcare |
| everything our profession stands for. Under | | | | settings. |
| managed care, nurses are frequently denied | | | | |
| the opportunity to deliver the quality of | | | | Maybe the Center for Nursing Advocacy should |
| care they expect to deliver. Some patients | | | | contemplate that fact. They might even |
| die unnecessarily because nurses have too | | | | suggest that ER present an episode about a |
| little time to spend with them. Yet when | | | | nurse who quits her hospital job to become a |
| everything turns sour, nurses face more | | | | Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. |
| responsibility and liability than ever. | | | | |
| | | | Then those 20 million ER fans would really be |
| Many nurses I know endure nightmarish | | | | watching "reality TV. |