NR 395-Week 1 Discussion Topic - 2026/2027) (2pages)

Describe the way in which nurses are perceived by your patients and the public. Do the bestknown nurses currently depicted in the media represent the type of nursing image you wish to promote? Speaking of image, do you feel that no longer wearing traditional white uniforms has had an impact on how nurses are perceived? Is how you dress an important part of your public image? What could you do to improve the professional image of nurses? Nurses in reference to how we come off to the patients in my facility are primarily seen as a serving profession. We give patients their medications and conduct treatments and procedures, however, hospitals have been turning towards hospitality services and we bend over backwards to make sure whatever the patient wishes has been done immediately when requested. This task becomes difficult when the patient load for one nurse is 6 and they all require individual needs. Huston (2017) mentions that “If asked to describe a nurse, most of the public would use such terms as nice, hardworking, or caring. They would also use the terms ethical and honest” which even some of my friends would include in discussing a nurse, however they are more educated on what a nurse is required to do in knowing me and listening to my trials and tribulations encountered during my working day (Hutson, pg. 348). I am not one who watches those nursing TV shows like ER, Nurse Jackie, or Greys Anatomy like some may, but I have been watching a new TV series called New Amsterdam which focuses on the doctor’s interactions, but in these episodes, you can see nurses in the background running around and conducting patient care. The nurses in the background look like the nurses on my floor, giving medications in codes, monitoring a patient having a seizure, doing dressing changes, etc. Though nurses are not wearing white uniforms and caps like in the olden days, my facility has incorporated color coded uniforms to differentiate between Patient Care Assistants (wearing grey or lavender) and the Nursing team (navy blue). Penn Med News (2015) wrote an article that discussed the oldfashioned white nurse attire and how it dissolved into colored attire in the 1970’s. Penn Med News (2015) also discussed a few surveys conducted that mention the patient and family’s concerns about being able to determine who was a nurse and who would be able to help them when needed, thus making it important to have a specific color designated for nurses. Dressing in blue scrubs has aided my identification in the public, as well as wearing my badge. It has given me some respect in public and encourages me to continue to represent nursing as a whole. -Karina References: Huston, C.J. (2017). P