This post is by CHMP’s graduate fellow, Amanda Anderson, RN. Amanda is a practicing bedside nurse in Manhattan, and a student in the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing‘s dual MSN/MPA program with Baruch College. At HBSON, she co-directs The Nurses Writing Project, a nurse-specific writing program that uses peer-based collaborative writing assistance and reflective writing practices to grow nurse leadership via the written word. She blogs here, and for a number of other nursing sites. Find her clips via her blog, This Nurse Wonders. She tweets @12hourRN.
–
I love the New York Times, I really do. Above the shower in my tiny, windowless bathroom, hangs a clipped front page from March 17, 2004. A woman walks in front of a bodega’s flower display as snowflakes fall. She holds a cell phone, and like a true New Yorker, goes unphased by the flowers, the snow, and their ironically beautiful combination. I loved this photo then, when I was in college in rural Ohio – it was the personification of a city I knew I was destined for. I love it now, as I walk the same streets and continue to read the same paper.
But the longer I read, the more I realize that my beloved Times really doesn’t love me back. Sure, it loves me, the student, the reader, the art lover, and the citizen. But my New York Times doesn’t love me, the nurse. Day after day, I open to stories about topics that lead directly into the world of nursing – health care policy, Ebola coverage, even business innovations –with word after word, and quote after quote blatantly devoid of the opinions of our country’s largest and most trusted profession.
An article in today’s NYT discusses Ebola preparedness in New York City hospitals. Although “nurse,” and “the nurses,” are used in descriptions of personal protective equipment (PPE) upgrades, nurse opinion is not cited. An opportunity for public education on the risks of transmission is missed (arrow) – a perfect place for an experienced nurse to explain the process of donning, wearing, and removing PPE. The only nurse quoted in the article remains unnamed, described as, ” not authorized,” for identified comment, despite assumed position as a hospital employee.
I’ve written a few reflections about this absence on my own blog, and for HealthCetera. Many center around the seminal book, From Silence to Voice, where authors Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon discuss the absence of nursing voice in mainstream media, and why this is a problem in dire need of a solution.
I believe our absence in papers like the Times says much more than any misquote or unauthorized sound bite we might fear – our silence infers that we, the nursing profession, has nothing to say. But from my experience at the bedside and in the policy world, I know this isn’t true; nurses have more to say that matters than most partners in health care teams. Maybe we just don’t realize this?
So, from now until I start seeing active solicitation of expert nurse opinion in my daily paper, I’ll write a column here on HealthCetera. This column, called, “What Would #ThisNurse Say?” will take one news article each week, and discuss the absence of nursing voice within its contents. It will then shed light onto what the article might look like with the presence of nursing voice. I’ll also give you tips on how to reach out to your local papers as a nurse expert, who to talk to at work to get your expert-quotes approved, and where to go when you want the inside-scoop on news from a nursing perspective.
Nursing is big, but we’re often ignored. We’re vital, but we’re always fighting replacement. Perhaps it’s time to enter into the media arena as the experts we are in the bedside arena – one newspaper quote after another. Join me every Thursday, here on HealthCetera, to do just that.
