As a student nurse, I appreciate the article “The Beautiful Hospital” for peeling the curtain away from the wizards creating TV hospital drama and revealing the secrets of medical reality. While most viewers of “House” likely realize that its portrayal of the doctor-dominated hospital experience is contrived, revealing the reality of interdisciplinary patient care in the media is critical in order create a more accurate image for the public. Only then, can nurses and other members of the healthcare team receive the support and respect that their work deserves.

However, while the author illuminates this sharp contrast of TV fiction from reality, her portrayal of the hospital experience is itself not universal. Whereas “House” depicts a hospital in which exceptionally beautiful doctors provide all the important patient care, Sallie Tisdale describes a scenario in which the nurses “ran the show”. The truth lies somewhere in between.

Patient care in the hospital is delivered by a team of nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and many other caring, hard-working, sometimes exhausted professionals dedicated to helping their patients get better. By pointing this out, Sally Tisdale counters the fantasy portrayal of hospitals people see on TV.

Meredith Russell, UCSF Student Nurse

Sallie-

in light of the negative stereotypical portrayal of Drs in your essay

the explanations you offer in your post are more than a bit disingenuous

("even though that's what I wrote, that's not what I really meant, what I really meant was this...") - as if the stale God with the Dr.-complex joke wasn't bad enough

Mergent -

by golly you've got it! that is exactly what this should not be about.

it should not be about Drs vs Nurses -

that is my point precisely.

Nurses have a legitimate cause.

Make it known without turning it into a Drs vs Nurses debacle a la Tisdale

Sallie-

in light of most negative stereotypical portrayal of Drs in your essay

the explanations you offer in your post are more than a bit disingenuous

("even though that's what I wrote, that's not what I really meant, what I really meant was this...") - as if the stale God with the Dr.-complex joke wasn't bad enough

Mergent -

by golly you've got it!

that is exactly what this should not be about.

it should not be about Drs vs Nurses -

that is my point precisely.

Nurses have a legitimate cause.

Make it known without turning it into a Drs vs Nurses debacle a la Tisdale

Your attitude that Northwestern Hospital is the "only" good hospital in Chicago (or at least its North Side) is seriously mistaken. Yes, it's one of the most expensive...hardly a surprise...but since when does money alone buy quality? How many hospitals in this city have you or your friends actually been in? So how can you really compare? My doctor is associated with one of the "neighborhood" hospitals and from my experience I received fine care at considerably less expense. (I'm sure my insurance company was delighted!)

And as for your "third world" reference...well, it's Easter Sunday so in the spirit of the season I think I'll refrain from commenting.

Connie wrote: "Over the years, I've visited many hospitals throughout the country in connection with my work. Some of them are even more beautiful than the one depicted on "House." The really spectacular ones are major academic medical centers. Two examples are Northwestern Memorial in Chicago and Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis."

Thanks for mentioning Northwestern -- it is simply the best and is pretty much the ONLY hospital informed Chicago north siders will go to (for its doctors, nurses, research, patient dignity, etc.). The neighborhood "hospitals" in this city border on third-world! I won't bore you with the sorry details of the shocking "care" you can expect.

My whole family has the phone number of a private ambulance service so if it comes to that, we can instruct the driver to go to Northwestern; if you just dial 911 they automatically take you to the nearest neighborhood joke.

I also don't have a sweet clue what comprises the majority of a nurse's workday on an orthopedic unit, which is where I assume you've been rehabilitating post-accident, and that's sort of my point. Maybe they DO only take blood pressures and temperatures, dole out meds, and administer bed baths. Somehow I doubt that that's all they do, but what do I know? I don't work on such a unit, nor have I ever (with the exception of a one week clinical rotation back when I was a first year nursing student, but that was a fairly limited-exposure type of situation). Like physician specialities, nursing specialities come in all colors of the rainbow.

Agreed.

And CosmicMojo, while I don't want to totally discount your observations while in hospital, or your right to believe that a show about nurses would not be nearly as fascinating as all of those shows about doctors, I will still stress that even when you thought you were witnessing EVERY SINGLE ACTION by every single staff member, you likely still weren't seeing the full picture. And you're STILL generalising based upon what you witnessed the nurses doing on the unit in which you were recovering. The problem with your assumption is twofold: you base your opinion on what you saw one particular group of nurses doing on one particular unit and also feel that you 'saw everything'. Not all units are run the same (I mean, holy shit, if mental health nurses were doing all of the same stuff we cardiovascular nurses do, to give one example, they sure would have a lot of, uh, useful telemetry strips to analyse, right?) and not all nursing work is done strictly at the bedside (last I checked, patients are typically not welcome in the nursing station or meeting rooms, where much interesting investigation, discussion, diagnoses, and treatment plans are 'hashed out', mostly before the doctor even hits the floor and brings his or her expertise into it; as Sallie nicely pointed out, much of what makes watching these doctor-centric shows exciting is mostly what is actually done in real life by nurses and other health care professionals, but gets attributed to the physician's role on TV).

Oh, and there are different levels of nurses, too.

You can choose to believe me or not, and I'm certainly not fishing for 'Ohmygod, you poor, heroic, misunderstood nurses!' exaltations, but it feels like as good an opportunity as any to clear up some misconceptions. Ultimately, we nurses know what we do; it's just nice sometimes when we can 'lift the veil' and show others, too.

Believe me: no hard feelings. :) You have my apologies for being exceedingly long-winded and more than a little stubborn. I'll end my diatribe here.