What is a nurse? What images of nursing do you have? What images of nursing are portrayed in the media? What images of nursing do we want in the future?
These are just some of the many questions that can—and should—be asked about the profession of nursing. No matter where in the world you happen to be living, a healthy and positive image of nursing matters. Nurses constitute the largest segment of the healthcare workforce worldwide. Valuing the vital work they do—and can do when given the chance—is important for individual and population health.
Do we really want to stay stuck with the image of nursing portrayed by the lady with the (Victorian) lamp, Florence Nightingale? Do we want to stay stuck even further back in time to the monastic orders who provided nursing care? Do we want to stay stuck in the limiting hospital-based image of nursing portrayed our slightly more evolved TV soap operas (from General Hospital) of E.R. and Grey’s Anatomy or even Nurse Jackie?
In reviewing my own—literal—images of nursing that I have collected over the years, it struck me how few I have of hospital nursing. To be precise, I only have one photograph I took of a hospital nurse and that was quite by accident. I was taking a photograph of a shiny-surfaced piece of hospital artwork and a nurse happened to be walking past behind me. In contrast, I have numerous photographs I have taken of nurses providing foot care and health education in homeless shelters, tent encampments, and even under bridges. Intrepid, empathic, fearless nurses. They are my image of what nursing is and what nursing can become. They are from many parts of the world. Here they are and I hope they give you hope for the future of not just nursing. And check out the Nursing Now program, in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the International Council of Nurses, which aims to raise the status and profile (and image I suppose) of nursing.
JOSEPHINE ENSIGN 