Not Just a Nurse - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, FAAN

Some things are better left unsaid. Michelle Collins and Joy Behar, moderators on the TV Show The View, learned that important lesson last week. On Sunday evening September 13th, the Miss America pageant was televised. One of the participants, Kelley Johnson Miss Colorado, was a Registered Nurse. Instead of the usual type of talent presentation, she chose to do a short monologue on what she had learned as a nurse from one of her patients. She was dressed in scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck. It was a short, heartfelt story about a patient with Alzheimer’s disease who taught her that she was not “just a nurse”. Whether this was an appropriate talent selection can be debated by those more knowledgeable about these things. Clearly, the judges were at least somewhat impressed because they selected her as a 2nd runner-up, and she received a $20,000 scholarship. It is what happened next that is so interesting.

The following Monday on the View, the show hosts discussed the Miss America pageant. Michelle Collins began by mocking both the monologue given by Kelly Johnson describing it as “reading emails out loud” and her decision to come out on stage in her nurse’s uniform. She described the presentation as hilarious. Joy Behar then asked why she would have a “doctor’s stethoscope on?” Nurses were quick to respond on social media in large numbers to these thoughtless remarks reminding the panelists that a nurse’s use of a stethoscope might someday save their lives. I also noted in many of the messages and tweets that Behar and Collins were advised to check out the Gallup Polling which indicates that nursing is the most trusted profession. The Youtube video of Kelley’s monologue has now been watched by more than 4 million viewers – and I am sure that most did not find it hilarious. Behar and Collins have since apologized for what they have characterized as careless remarks, and had a group of nurses on the show to discuss nursing on Friday. Two of the major show advertisers – Johnson & Johnson and Eggland’s Best, pulled advertising from the show in a display of solidarity with nursing.

The conversation around this incident united nurses in a way that few other things have including questionable TV representations such as Nurse Jackie. There was however one other important takeaway for nurse leaders. The story that Kelley told was built around her own perception (which later changed) that she was “just a nurse”. It seems almost impossible to understand how nurses in 2015 still use that phrase to describe themselves given their level of professional responsibility. This is something that we as nurse leaders can and must change. When we hear nurses say this to patients, we need to intervene and remind our nurses how empowered and capable they really are. Our scope of practice as nurses is different than that of physicians but that does not make our professional work any less important or meaningful.

Confucius said that “words are the voice of the heart”. Words have the power to either build self-esteem or destroy it. Just a nurse is a phrase that does not build self-esteem or promote professionalism nor as Kelley learned is it how our patients see us. It is time to stop saying it.