Is Image Part of the Nursing Shortage Problem?

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

IS IMAGE PART OF THE NURSING SHORTAGE PROBLEM?
Journalist to address nurses on "becoming visible"

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (Feb. 20, 2003) - "Nursing is little known and understood," says journalist and author Suzanne Gordon, and this phenomenon leads to distorted stereotypes of nurses-as physician's handmaid, self-sacrificing angel of mercy, sex object, or even shrew. How to replace the stereotypes with an authentic, professional image - one that is more attractive to young people seeking a career in health care - will be the subject of Gordon's keynote talk at a nursing conference next week.

"Day of Dialogue: Advancing Nursing's Influence" will be held Thursday, Feb. 27, at the Sheraton Midway Hotel, 400 Hamline Ave. N., St. Paul, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Gordon will speak at 9 a.m

The conference is sponsored by the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, Katharine J. Densford International Center for Nursing Leadership, and Minnesota Colleagues in Caring.

Joanne Disch, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, executive director of the Densford Center, says it is critical to correct the stereotypes. "Nursing is a wonderful profession. It gives you the opportunity to be both intellectually challenged and know you are making a difference in people's lives. That's something few occupations offer."

Nurses topped the list in two recent Gallup polls measuring the public's perception of honesty and ethics in the various professions, and are universally acknowledged to be the backbone of the health care system. But their approach to holistic healing through caring, as opposed to healing exclusively through medicine, is not well understood as a specialized skill requiring specialized training, experience, skills, and experience.

Gordon says the result is that nurses are vulnerable to being miscast as junior or cheaper doctors, or even doctors' assistants, when in fact they practice an independent healing art that overlaps with but is different from medicine.

In a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the director of the American Association of College of Nursing pointed to poor image as a disincentive to attracting an adequate supply of baccalaureate-educated nurses. In the June 14, 2002 issue, Geraldine Bednash, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, wrote that focus groups conducted by the AACN revealed that many secondary-school guidance counselors and students do not view nursing as the intellectual endeavor it is

Gordon is a health-care commentator on Minnesota Public Radio's Marketplace, and the co-editor of From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public. She is the author of Prisoners of Men's Dreams and Caregiving: Readings In Knowledge, Practice, Ethics and Politics. She is a frequent contributor to the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times and is a popular lecturer on health care.

Registration is $60 for one person, $50 per person for a group of three or more from the same organization, and $30 for full-time students.

The Academic Health Center is home to the University of Minnesota's seven health professional schools and colleges, including the School of Nursing, as well as several health-related centers and institutes. Founded in 1851, the University is one of the oldest and largest land grant institutions in the country. The AHC mission is to prepare the new health professionals who improve the health of communities, discover and deliver new treatments and cures, and strengthen the health economy.

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