Nursing Image

Common perspective sees nurses as ‘secondary’ profession in the medical treatment environment. However, the public is often unaware of the significance of the profession toward daily activities of the medical system. Recent articles and researches revealed increasing roles of nurses. An article by Patricia Foster and J.M Whitworth, for example, revealed the importance of nursing profession in telemedicine and care for child abuse. Advances of communication technology have created a system that enables trained nurses to play a significant role in the psychological investigation of abused children (Foster & Whitworth, 2005). Another study suggested that nurses are also playing a significant part in the issue of medical waste. The International Council for Nurses has agreed to socialize a new standard that encourage nursing organization to educate nurses in terms of medical waste awareness (â€Å"Medical Waste,† 2005). Despite being seen as secondary role, the profession is still ‘positively valued’ by most aspects of the society. General image of a nurse is still largely positive as seen in several popular Hollywood motion pictures. As movies is in fact, the quickest way to determine a society’s perspective toward a certain character or profession, it is reasonable to use popular movies in order to assess the present image of nurses and their roles in common medical treatment process. Within this short elaboration, we will assess the image and roles of nurses, from the movie, Pearl Harbor. II.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Assessment Within the movie, Pearl Harbor, the nurses are seen as one of the mail roles. Their presence is shown from the beginning of the movie, but their active roles are presented in a special segment of the movie, showing dramatic scenes. The movie displays that the nurse profession requires professionalism and intelligence as well as mental strength in certain times and conditions. There were times that the nurses need to perform unorthodox treatment method in order to cope with the suppressing conditions. As shown in the motion picture, adaptation and creativity to face unexpected circumstances are necessary to provide the best care for patients. Sometimes, they work together with non-medical personnel because the lack of sufficient number of available nurses. Within the special segment of the movie, the nurses are shown to assume control of the situation. This is logical due to the emergence of the event that took place. However, they kept their places under orders from the doctors, to preserve medical order and good coordination between the medical personnel. The doctors are shown to have more authority and do most of the talking. Nevertheless there are circumstances where young and inexperienced doctor require experienced nurses to guide and support them. In the absence of available doctors, the nurses are shown to take charge of the medical treatment process. Nurses are shown to be in various age in the movie. However, there is no significant scene that presents the image of nurses are men. Most (or all) of the nurse characters are female. There is a strong image that nurses are commonly female, single and physically attractive. This image is shown in the beginning of the movie. However, feminist should not be alarmed, because as the movie proceed to the dramatic scenes, the nurses are shown to be women of character that inspire the value of humanism and passionate to provide service toward others. I have also captured the difference of values between nurses and other profession within the movie. Soldiers are shown to be a lot more aggressive, dominant and careless compare to nurses. These images are perhaps reasonable because their profession demands them to be bold and somewhat careless. The nurses on the other hand, are shown to be careful, organized, highly stable, non-violence human beings that dedicate their lives to the care of others, instead of creating any form of harm. The profession of nurses could be identified with intelligent and confident characters, but hardly ever ambitious. The nurses in this motion picture are shown to help manage the medical treatment process. Some nurses are shown to be capable, despite their lack of experience in handling such circumstances. Some others ‘crack’ under pressure, which is -under the circumstances-, understandable. The nurses are shown to support each other medically as well as mentally. In one of the scenes, the movie even displayed that a nurse is trusted by the head doctor to choose between those salvageable and those cannot be saved. I am not sure about the possibility of this event to take place in real life, but the scene does display the significant role of nurses in medical emergency. Reference Foster, Patricia., & Whitworth, J M. (2005). The Role of Nurses in Telemedicine and Child Abuse. Retrieved September 26, 2005 from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/506916?rss Medical Waste: Role of Nurses and Nursing. n.d. Retrieved September 26, 2005 from http://www.icn.ch/psmedwaste.htm Nursing Image A memorable and attractive nurse image is found in the movie â€Å"The English Patient† in the face of Hana, a young French-Canadian nurse skillfully played by Juliette Binoche. Hana is one of the central images of the plot, appearing in ‘present’ part of the film that intersperses present with reminiscences of the past. She does an exceptional job tending to the ‘English patient’ who is surviving only thanks to her determination, perseverance and commitment. She both performs her professional duties towards the patient and develops a personal attitude towards the mutilated man left in her care. Hana seems to be in love with her patient who is far from sexually attractive with his maimed body, perhaps as extrapolation of her caring attitude towards him. Hana is put in a difficult situation, tending to the patient all alone at the time of the war. Her experience shows that a nurse’s job can at times be extremely challenging as nurses have to follow their patients through the most difficult of times and deliver care equally in the time of peace and war. Hana’s job involves many things – she delivers professional care to the patient, washing his wounds and giving him morphine, reads aloud to him, but also fixes the villa and does the gardening. Hana is left alone with her patient – there are no other medical professionals in the vicinity, and she is the sole decision-maker in her professional actions, which underscores the importance of her nursing role. Hana is a really likeable character, mainly because of her personal character and her determination to patient care. She is only twenty when the war starts and makes her mature in the shortest possible time. She is so determined to her work that she cuts her hair after three days in the war and pledges to skip looking in the mirror until it ends. This shows how much her nursing means to her as she is ready to get rid of what made her feminine attraction to be able to deliver quality care to her patients. However, Hana is not devoid of natural women’s desires: she gets attracted to men, exemplified in her relations with Kip, who later becomes her lover, and the English patient himself who she admires secretly as a man who suffered his wounds in the cruel and heroic warfare. Hana’s relationship with the English patient is a complex cobweb of professional commitment and the burgeoning love of the young woman for a man she sees as ideal. Hana is young and attractive, and the viewer takes her infatuation with men as a natural order of things, because it does not seem to interfere with her professionalism. Thus, Hana demonstrates the values of service to others and humanism, since she does not limit her care to professional interactions, but is ready to take the patient as a human being. She maintains his belief in the favorable outcome of the treatment and makes him feel that he should make an effort to survive, since it is personally important to her. There is not much in the movie to depict Hana’s understanding of scholarship or achievement, though. Maybe the reason is that Hana just happened to become a nurse because she wanted to make a contribution to her nation in the time of the war and does not see her future as connected with nursing career. Rather, Hana attends to her duties with a Christian attitude that intertwines the requirements of the nursing profession with the religious beliefs. She talks of her patient as a saint and compares his bones to those of Christ. This religious background clearly serves as an important motivator for Hana, inspiring her in her nursing activities. Hana wins recognition with the surrounding people thanks to her role in providing care. Eventually, she succeeds in building a little world around herself that unites the thief Caravaggio, the English patient, the Indian ‘sapper’ Kip, and herself. All these people find consolation in their association with a lovable woman who also has a caring and affectionate character. Hana wins the affection of the viewer, too, by being thoroughly professional and at the same time deeply humane. Bibliography The English Patient. Dir. Anthony Minghella. 1996.