I might as well call this list, “What Hollywood gets wrong about nurses, part one zillion…”
1. We’re not predatory hags bent on landing a doctor.
From my vast experience, I can honestly say that the only thing worse than dating a musician would be dating a physician.
2. Likewise, nobody’s hanky-pankying in the stairwell or the clean utility rooms.
For one thing, there are too many people coming in and out. For another, I have yet to see a doctor that looks like McDreamy.
3. We’re never that perky.
I think the last time I got enough sleep on a regular basis was shortly before I started school.
4. You never see coffee cups and honey-bun wrappers in fictional nurses’ stations.
5. No nurse I know wears her hair down on a regular basis.
Seriously: Do you want your hair getting into a wound? Ponytail, bun, weird clippy arrangement or shave it off: it’s the only way to be sanitary.
6. TV and movie nurses have perfect manicures.
7. And their eye makeup lasts.
Try getting sprayed in the face with the backflush of a G-tube and see how long that mascara holds up.
8. They never seem to work.
Even in “serious” movies, nurses spend a whole lot more time in exposition and drama than they do actually doing nurse things.
9. And finally, we don’t exist.
Aside from Scrubs and Nurse Jackie and a few movies about killer/sexy/crazy/junkie nurses, we don’t exist. Nor do MRI techs, respiratory therapists or radiation techs. Doctors do everything. Frankly, a doctor is the last person I want programming the MRI when I’m headed into the tube. Give me a good, solid, experienced tech any day.