"Nursing has been hailed as the mucilage that keeps the healthcare system intact. The role of nursing practice is fundamental to provision of healthcare services.
Precisely, nurses provide undivided bedside attention to patients, administer drugs, and carryout diagnostic procedures on patients. However, nursing roles have been stereotyped by television and film industry (Ward et al., 2012).
In movies and television episodes, nurses have been depicted as sexual objects, victims, subordinates, and have been relegated to degrading roles.
These misconceptions become ingrained in the public's view of nursing practitioners, affecting behavioral practice, recruitment, and work-related performance (Ward, Finney, Ferris, Jones, Owens & Williams, 2012).
In some movies female nurses are portrayed as intimate partners to male physicians who are considered as superior to the nurses, further demeaning the nursing practice.
The positive role of nursing is often eliminated in films which instead choose to offer the roles to physicians who are depicted as carrying out nursing duties (Ward et al., 2012). Also, nurses have been stamped as predominantly female, portraying the impression that Males do not enroll as nurses.
Through sustained activism, nursing practitioners can pressurize the film and television directors to consider designating acting roles which portray nursing positively.
In addition, nurses need to employ stern initiatives to change negative public perceptions of the profession through education. To achieve this goal, policy makers should initiate campaigns to sensitize the masses on the positive role of nurses in the health care system. Without the nursing profession, clinical practice would be dysfunctional.
Therefore, patients and caregivers should be educated on the value of nursing to the health care system and object negative views to media organizations that belittle nursing care and practice (Ward et al., 2012)."