So, now that I'm done with nursing school and all I've heard for awhile is how all these medical shows totally portray nurses in the wrong light and how all these misrepresentations have negatively impacted the amount of people going into nursing. I'll be the first to admit, the docs on House are doing their jobs AND the nurses' job, but whatever. WHO CARES. It didn't stop me from going into nursing or the 400+ people that applied to Saddleback this past semester, just like it probably doesn't affect thousands of other aspiring nurses. And you know why? Because it's not a NURSE show, it's a drama pretty much centered around DOCTORS.
Well, Hollywood's not standing for it anymore. Some nurse advocacy group somewhere complained loud and hard enough. Coming soon to a channel near you will be shows like Hawthorne (with the "rn" highlighted because you know, she's an "RN" and those letters are in her name... eh, eh...) and the pukefest and terd-pile that is Nurse Jackie. You can watch a sneak preview at Showtime's website. I predict it will be the worst 28 minutes of your life and you will never have that time back. I know this.
The website actually pumps it up with this enticing tagline: Surviving the chaotic grind of saving lives, this sharp-witted woman of substance knows how to handle it all. With a white lie here, a bent rule there, and a steady dose of pain relievers, Jackie does what it takes to get the job done right. Really? This is the answer to years of nurse misrepresentation? THIS is going to show nurses in a positive light and draw people into the field?
I'm sure someone, somewhere will snort and roll their eyes at my sheer disdain for this show- saying I need to loosen up, it's funny, it's not real and it's just entertainment. They'll say she's hilarious and strong and calls it like it is. I say it's trash, disparaging and just as damaging to the image of nursing as NOT using them like they should be in House. She's the exact opposite of the nurse I want to be and she's the exact kind of nurse I wish would just retire because she's not fun to be around and there's plenty of new grads frothing at the mouth for her job and would do a much better job and wouldn't need to snort Oxycontin just to do it.
Within the first 10 minutes of this show, she snorted some grains of a pain killer for her sore back before going on shift (illegal), forged the signature of a dead patient so they could harvest his organs (illegal), banged the pharmacist in the pharmacy (classy!), took the Oxy her "lover" offered her for her bad back that she aggravated during their med room tryst (karma!), told her MD buddy that she'd only do the heimlich maneuver on a restaurant patron if the MD bought lunch her lunch (wench!) and was generally snarly and foul-mouthed throughout the entire thing. Later on, after talking to her nursing student while hanging a medication for a patient, she sends the student home after a long day, looks at the IV pump and proceeds to rip the whole cartridge and line out of the machine. She looks at the patient and says "I almost killed you", while looking actually human and sorry, kisses the patient on the forehead and walks off. You idiot. Three things could've avoided that happening:
1) Try verifying your patient's identity. If you're going to have a nurse show, at least try to get it right, like making sure your characters are using the 5 Rights of Med Administration.
2) Maybe don't TALK while you're hanging meds.
3) Just a thought, but DON'T DO DRUGS while working!!!!!
Didn't the tagline say she does things right? Lies.
I then paused the show so that I could write all the above stuff. That was a good thing, because I might have forgotten all of that after being fully repulsed by the last 8 minutes of the show. In that last 8 minutes, she steals money from a patient and Ugg boots from a co-worker and gives them to the girlfriend of the dead "organ donor"; runs into the pharmacist who gives her a Dr. Pepper, a Moon Pie and some Vicodin and they share a kiss goodnight; she then goes home where she gives the Moon Pie to her two little girls; and then to cap it all off, she slips on her wedding ring and walks into the kitchen where her husband gives her a loving smile and tells her he cooked dinner. You lying, worthless whore. Woman of substance? Only if that substance is poop.
Let's just cut the crap- this show sucks. And I'm actually offended it even exists. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a gung-ho, by-the-book new grad RN. Nurse advocacy groups should be even more pissed off at this then they are at House, or ER or Grey's Anatomy. Nobody watches those shows for the nurses! They watch them because Dr. House is a crank and funny, ER was a soap opera at best and had George Clooney, and Grey's Anatomy is an hour-long chick flick.
You know, if they want a real RN show, then they should just talk to me about my reality show idea. Discovery Health, are you listening? Follow around a group of nursing students through all 4 semesters, document all the crap they go through both studying and in clinical, how freakishly stressful it is finding a job while finishing school and end it on graduation. THAT'S how you show real nursing.
And on that note, can't wait to see how HawthoRNe manages to underwhelm (or better put, enrage) me.
0 comments:
Post a Comment