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Saving Lives paperback coverJoin Sandy and Harry Summers tomorrow to discuss the updated Oxford edition of Saving Lives on WYPR radio and at Baltimore's Central Library!

Listen online to WYPR's Midday with Dan Rodricks from 12 noon - 1 pm EDT on October 27. Listen to the archive.

See the authors live at the Baltimore Central Library at 6:30 pm on October 27

Love! Witchcraft! Cupcakes!

Fall 2014 television overview

Press coverage

CNN interviews Truth's executive director about Ebola response

Order a copy of the updated second edition of Saving Lives today!

Get Truth posters and place them at your school or workplace!

Sign Sandy Summers up to speak at your next engagement!

 

Join Sandy and Harry Summers live tomorrow, October 27, 2014!


Central Library, Baltimore, 6:30 pm

MiddayBaltimore's Central Library will feature Sandy and Harry Summers discussing their book Saving Lives as part of the library's "Writers LIVE!" series at 6:30 p.m. on October 27 in the Poe Room (2nd floor). The Central Library is the main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system and is located at 400 Cathedral St., Baltimore, MD 21201. Listen to the podcast...

Midday with Dan Rodricks, WYPR 88.1 FM, 12 noon - 1:00 pm

MiddayJoin the conversation with Sandy and Harry!
On Midday with Dan Rodricks, WYPR 88.1 FM, the Baltimore NPR affiliate, on October 27, from 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm. Click here to listen to the archive.

See our flyer on the events. Send it to friends and colleagues!

   

Love! Witchcraft! Cupcakes!

Fall overviewOctober 2014 -- The fall U.S. prime time television schedule has several new shows with nurses among the regular characters, although there is a notable trend toward the distant past. Outlander, the Starz series which has now aired half its first season and will resume in April, is based on popular books about a British World War II combat nurse who is transported back in time to 18th-century Scotland. There, she falls in with local rebels, has romantic adventures, and occasionally displays impressive emergency health skills--which are mistaken for witchcraft! There's not much health care, but nurse Claire is smart, tough, and ready for action. Cinemax's The Knick, which ended its first season on October 17, focuses on the exploits of early 20th-century surgeons at a New York hospital. The show's tone is unusually harsh and corruption is everywhere, but it still embraces the traditional view of surgeons as the brash 'n' brilliant heroes of health care. The nurses are peripheral handmaidens; the only one who really seems to emerge from the background is also a lover of the main surgeon character. Both shows will be back for second seasons. Perhaps capturing the Fault in Our Stars Zeitgeist, Fox's new Red Band Society follows a group of seriously ill teens in the pediatric ward at an LA hospital. The show has two nurse characters and one physician, but early episodes are consistent with show ads, which label the characters using stereotypes:  the physician gets "the hot doc," the junior nurse is "nurse cupcake," and the senior nurse is "nurse tough love" (which is at least better than "Scary Bitch," the label for her seen on some LA bus ads). The show's nurses have some psychosocial skill, but otherwise seem to lack health care knowledge. Another unpromising new show is ABC's sitcom Black-ish, which focuses on a successful black family struggling with its racial identity. Mom is an anesthesiologist who wants her gifted 6-year-old daughter Diane to become a physician too, so in an early episode she takes the adorable tyke to work, where Diane tells the useless emergency nurse who is babysitting her that he is a "man with a woman's job." Physician-centric returning shows include ABC's endless Grey's Anatomy (attractive, brilliant surgeons; handmaiden nurses); the Fox sitcom The Mindy Project (quirky but skilled OB-GYN physicians; stooge nurses) and the CW's Hart of Dixie (returning mid-season) (smart, attractive small town physician; no nurses). Of course, some returning shows are better for nursing. In spring 2015, Showtime's powerful Nurse Jackie will return for a seventh and final season of clinical expertise and creative patient advocacy. Returning for a fourth season on PBS in 2015 will be the BBC's Call the Midwife, which focuses on skilled, autonomous nurse midwives caring for poor women in 1950's London (admittedly, that show is part of the distant past trend). Channel 4's U.K. documentary 24 Hours in A&E will be back for a seventh season, moving from King's College to St. George's Hospital, but we hope skilled emergency nurses will remain key members of the cast. We're not sure which category HBO's patheticomic Getting On (returning Nov. 9) falls into; the engaging portrayal of modern geriatric care seems to view both nurses and physicians with sad-eyed contempt. On the whole, a few good shows for nursing are hanging on in the midst of the flood of physician-centric television, but we are hoping for more before those veterans have to be, like Jackie . . . getting on. more...

 

Press coverage

Truth's executive director appears on CNN Newsroom to discuss Ebola response

CNN Brooke Baldwin and Sandy SummersOctober 16, 2014 -- Today Truth executive director Sandy Summers appeared on CNN Newsroom with anchor Brooke Baldwin to discuss the role of nurses in Ebola care, particularly in light of the recent infections of two nurses in Texas. See the 6-minute video clip or the transcript (search for "Summers").

 

Get a copy of the updated second edition of Saving Lives with every $30 donation!

Saving Lives paperback cover Donate $30 to the Truth now, and we will send you a copy of our leaders' newly released book Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nursing Puts Us All at Risk. The first edition of Saving Lives won an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award and an award from the international nursing honor society, Sigma Theta Tau. The book was written for nurses, the media, and members of the public around the world. Many nursing professors use it as a text to discuss nursing in society. The authors donate all royalties to the Truth About Nursing. Order today--paperback or digital--and we will send a copy out to you!

 

Sandy SummersPlanning speakers? Support the Truth by inviting Sandy Summers to empower your nurses!

Media images of health care--like the ones on ABC's popular Grey's Anatomy-- have an important effect on the nursing profession. Many nurses and nursing students feel frustrated when influential media products undervalue nurses. But how can we change what the media tells the public about nursing? Sandy Summers has led high-profile efforts to promote more accurate and robust depictions of nursing since 2001. She has shared her insights in dynamic presentations to groups internationally. She empowers nurses and teaches them how to shape their image into one that reflects the profession's true value. When nurses get the respect they deserve, they will attract more resources for nursing practice, education, and research, so we can resolve the nursing shortage. Sign Sandy up for your next conference, nurses' week celebration, or gala event! All honoraria go directly to support the Truth's operations. When you invite Sandy to speak, you make the Truth's work possible since honoraria are our biggest source of funding. Thank you! Click here for more details.

 

Place Truth About Nursing posters at your school or workplace

I am your RN poster Tell colleagues and patients the truth! Our "I Am Your Registered Nurse" poster presents nurses as autonomous professionals on whom patients can rely. The poster explains that nurses are modern science professionals who protect and advocate for patients and empowers nurses to meet those challenges. Designed for the bedside, the poster comforts patients by educating them about the care environment and assuring them that nurses are there to fend for them.

Short dresses posterOr consider the Truth's "Can Short Dresses Cause Short Staffing?" poster. This one takes humorous aim at the naughty nurse image that continues to haunt advertisements and other media, especially those aimed at males. The poster connects the naughty nurse image with the broader undervaluation that leads to gross underfunding of nursing education, research, and practice, ultimately threatening patients.

For every dollar that you donate, we'll send you up to 4 posters to hang at your school or workplace. Just email us at info@truthaboutnursing.org to tell us how many you'd like and where to send them. Thank you!

 

Get involved!

Get involved in helping us change how the world thinks about nursing. Check out our action page or start a chapter of the Truth in your home town. Or join us on Facebook!

 

Please donate nowPlease support The Truth About Nursing

We need your help so we can pursue this mission together. We would be very grateful if you could make a donation--even if it is $5, $10 or $25. Any amount would be so helpful. Please click here to donate. Thank you!

 

The Truth About Nursing is an international non-profit organization based in Baltimore that seeks to help the public understand the central role nurses play in health care. The Truth promotes more accurate media portrayals of nurses and greater use of nurses as expert sources. The group is led by Sandy Summers, co-author of Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All At Risk.

Thank you for supporting the Truth About Nursing's work!

Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
Founder and Executive Director
The Truth About Nursing
203 Churchwardens Rd.
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21212-2937
office 1-410-323-1100
fax 1-410-510-1790
ssummers@truthaboutnursing.org

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