What the Media Gets Wrong About Nursing — and Why It Matters
>>Listen to What the Media Gets Wrong About Nursing — and Why It Matters
For 25 years, Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH has been pushing back against the way nurses are shown on TV, in advertising, and in the news. As founder and executive director of The Truth About Nursing, she has called out networks, advertisers, and producers — sometimes dozens of times each — until they listened.
On a recent episode of the Love n’ Leary Nursing Podcast, hosts Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN and Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL sat down with Sandy to talk about what the media still gets wrong about nursing, why it matters far beyond entertainment, and what every nurse can do right now to help change the story.
Sandy walked through the most common ways nurses get portrayed: the unskilled nurse, the handmaiden, the naughty nurse, the angel, the battle axe, and what she calls the “yesterday’s girl” — the woman who never got the memo that women can do anything. Advanced practice nurses fare no better. They’re often shown as second-class providers, even though research shows their care is equal to or better than the care physicians provide.
“When the media portrays us in any regard, usually we just focus on the good or the bad, not the medium.”
The Truth About Nursing reaches out to thank people who get it right and challenges people who get it wrong.
The Truth About Nursing began in 2001. President George W. Bush had just released a budget proposal that called for cuts to nursing education and community health nursing. Sandy was in graduate school at Johns Hopkins. A friend, Gina Pastelka, suggested they get together and figure out what to do.
Their first target was ER, then the most influential medical show on television. Sandy called 35 times before the producers granted them a call. The conversation didn’t go well. The mid-level producer was polite. The medical advisor was dismissive. Sandy asked him to follow nurses at work. He declined.
Months later, the producers asked her to leave them alone. So she went outside.
Sandy issued a press release laying out the show’s nursing problems. The Washington Post picked it up. It went global. ER eventually made small changes, including sending the Sam Taggart character to nurse anesthetist school instead of medical school. It was a small win, but it set the model for everything that came next.
Twenty-five years later, the same producers are back with a new show — The Pit — and Sandy says they are making all the same mistakes. Physicians do the nursing work. Nurses do meaningless work in the background. In one episode, a patient dies and the nurse runs out of the room “like a scared bunny.”
“It was pathetic portrayal nursing.”
She did give one episode credit — season two, episode six — for actually showing nurses talking to patients and to each other. Otherwise, she said, the show is doing what ER did decades ago.
Marion pushed the conversation past entertainment. The way nurses are shown in the media has real-world consequences. It affects whether nursing gets designated a STEM field. It affects whether the Department of Education recognizes nursing as a professional degree. It affects funding for nursing education, research, and clinical practice.
Sandy laid out the numbers. Nursing education gets about one-fiftieth of the funding physician education gets. Nursing research gets a small fraction of the NIH budget. And the “nursing shortage” everyone keeps talking about? Sandy said it isn’t a shortage at all. There are roughly a million nurses sitting on the sidelines who would come back if hospitals fixed working conditions.
“Hospitals are driving nurses out of the workforce because they don’t see what we do as valuable enough.”
Rebecca added another piece. The American Medical Association recently approved 288 CPT codes for AI reimbursement and zero for nursing. Many of those AI-billable tasks are work nurses are already doing — but the reimbursement won’t flow back to the nursing workforce.
Sandy’s call to action was practical. Sign up for The Truth About Nursing newsletter at truthaboutnursing.org. Join their letter-writing campaigns. Watch for media portrayals of nursing, good or bad, and respond. Thank people who get it right. Challenge people who get it wrong.
She is also launching the Coalition for Better Understanding of Nursing, with plans for a first in-person gathering next summer. The goal is to bring together representatives from nursing organizations, hospitals, schools, and journals to coordinate.
But the most important action, she said, is to keep telling the story.
“Tell people about the last life you saved. And if you’re too shy to do that, tell people about the last life that your coworker saved.”
Rebecca framed it best. Burnout grows when nurses bottle up frustration. It eases when nurses turn that frustration into action. One phone call. One letter. One conversation. Multiplied across the largest profession in healthcare, that becomes a movement.
“We save lives, we matter, we have value. Make sure the whole world knows that.”
To listen to their full conversation, check out the Love n’ Leary Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or right here on nurse.org/lovenleary!
🤔Nurses, share your thoughts in the discussion forum below!
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Published on
June 26, 2026
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