New Portland Community Media Show Intends to Break Open Stereotypes About Nurses

Before Sonya Justice became a nurse 15 years ago, she had her share of misconceptions about the profession.   Her heritage is West African, and her family had encouraged her to choose a profession such as engineering, law or medicine. Instead, Justice pursued a degree in English communications, then moved to New York and found she couldn't survive on an entry-level salary with jobs in that field. She started exploring other avenues, and became interested in nursing because she was interested in working directly with patients and in patient responses.   Nursing in other countries isn't as well respected a profession, and Justice said she placated her father by saying she’d try nursing for a few years, then consider attending medical school. Now Justice is launching a magazine, Fabulous Nurse, and a TV show -- "Reel Nurses TV," or RNTV the first episode of which airs tonight on Portland Community Media -- which she hopes will counter the negative ideas about nurses in U.S. culture and around the world.    "Nothing less than the future of nursing is at stake," she said last week in a press conference at the PCM studio about the new show. The stereotypes of nurses -- either as "maids" who simply take orders from doctors, or as "flunkies and junkies" who steal and abuse prescription drugs and stab each other in the back -- are pervasive, and Justice worries they’ll influence the next generation's career choices.    Justice said her own career planning was influenced by negative, unrealistic portrayals of nurses in popular culture -- such as the character of Carol Hathaway on the long-running TV series "E.R.," a nurse who at one point during the series considers going to medical school and even takes the MCAT, receiving a perfect score. Ultimately, she decides against it, with the show's writers implying Hathaway's disinterest in medical school is a factor of the character's depression and low self-esteem rather than her love of nursing.   "I used to be one of those people with all those misconceptions," she said. One person she talked to while researching popular attitudes on nursing said he stereotyped nurses as "flunkies and junkies" until his own mother was sick.    "People think TV doesn't affect them, but it does," Justice said. "They think physicians come in and save the day, and nurses just take orders." Her friends who are doctors understand where she's coming from, and agree that the public needs to better understand the work nurses do. In addition to seeing nursing as a "lesser" profession requiring little formal education and nurses as handmaids of physicians, the public still traditionally views nursing as a woman-only profession. While women still make up the majority of nurses, Justice said that hasn't always been the case -- and the number of male nurses is growing.   "RNTV" will be part talk show -- Susan King, executive director of the Oregon Nurses Association, will appear on the first episode to talk about the Affordable Care Act -- and will also incorporate man-in-the-street interviews to educate the public about their health. Subsequent episodes will focus on pain management and "predators in the hospital" – such as bugs, bacteria and parasites, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria.    Justice lives in Portland and works as a travel nurse -- she just accepted a contract job at an intensive care unit in Seattle -- which she'll continue after the TV show and magazine launch, with the latter planned for January. She attended nursing school in Pittsburgh and has lived in the Pacific Northwest since 2009. The ONA confirmed King's appearance on the show but declined further comment, though Justice said the organization has been supportive of the show's mission, as have Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson (D-Gresham) and Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz. Justice is currently running a crowd funding campaign to finance the show, which will also be posted to YouTube to reach a broader audience.   “We look forward to seeing what RNTV offers for Oregon’s nursing community," said Mary Rita Hurley, executive director of the Oregon Center for Nursing.  "Providing forums, like OCN’s Oregon NurseCast podcast and Ms. Justice’s RNTV, are unique ways to highlight the innovations and important work of Oregon’s many nursing professionals.”