No more "Naughty Nurses", For the love of GOD!

I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this. No kidding.
The other day a local strip club burned down. Sorta random, but ok. On my twitter feed a man made the joke that unemployment rates for local single mothers and nursing students had gone up in relation to this event.
Seriously? Seriously.
Another man joined in and hardy hars were had all around.
I, of course questioned the first man: "What are you saying?"
 To which I got no reply other than another independent tweet from the first man  that he was cheeky and incorrigible.
Um, ok.
I'm a little bothered  becauseI know both of these men. I  have had conversations with them, they know me. They know I'm a Nurse. They still think this nonsense is funny.
So I was kinda chapped about the whole thing.
But I'm a thinker. I do alot of thinking. Sometimes when I ought to be sleeping.
What exactly is my problem here?
What do I care? It's two dudes on twitter making a lame joke about a strip club.
So. What?
Ok, first of all here's what my problem is NOT. Its not about sexuality. It's part of the human experience and quite frankly too often over looked  in North American culture. It's seen as dirty and to be hushed up. As a wise friend of mine once stated "We're MADE for it!! We should be doing it ALLL the time". No disagreement on that point. People would be healthier and happier if they had more sex. Ask the Dutch People. So my problem is not with the strippers.
My problem is with Nursing stereotypes in general. Which is what the joke about strippers looked like to me.
Stereotypes, turn people into soundbites. They leave no room for thoughtful consideration and if taken to the extreme keep us from experiencing  the world at large. So sayeth me.
Nursing stereotypes are particularly viscous, I find. Let's look at the biggest ones..

Angels of Mercy
Considering  Nurses as tireless, perfect angels of mercy does not leave room for our humanity. Nursing is hard, emotionally draining work.  This stereotype does not encourage Nurses to leave room in their practice for self care. This practise of self care is lacking in many nurse's practises I find. I, personally have trouble with this. I also wonder if it doesn't contribute to the issues of burnout and nurse error.

Servants of the DOCTOR
Now, this may have been true in the 1800's but the times they are a changing. We are currently a group of highly trained highly skilled professionals.  Unfortunately not everybody gets the memo. Nurses today not only work in concert with doctors we many times will direct the care. We ARE the boots on the ground. We are the eyes and ears and sometimes the brains of the operation. We trouble shoot, observe, consider options, assess treatments, suggest new treatments, reassess the outcomes, report and collaborate. The idea that we have no clinical judgement is erroneous and ignorant. It's what we do! Doctors  don't observe you  post op for signs you're in trouble. Nurses do. Doctors don't implement your plan of care. Nurses do. Doctors don't design your wound healing  protocol. Nurses do.  No nurse I know has the time to follow a Doc around being his or her servant.
Please don't misunderstand. Doctors are fantastic people. Dedicated and professional. But so are we.

Nurse Ratched
Man oh man I love this one. I've been called this myself a time or two. Mostly when I was disagreeing with someone or insisting on a level of action that I thought was right. Not just that something be done to correct a situation but that EVERYTHING be done. And done now.
Here's the problem with this one. Disagreeing with situations that I don't understand or deem inappropriate is my job. Its a mandate handed to me by the nice people who give me my license. The same people who will take that license away if a patient comes to harm under my watch in a situation that they deem I should have had some control over.
How this attitude of responsibility gets translated into the oppressive, abusive, miserable control freak that is portrayed in the movie "one flew over the cuckoos nest" is beyond me.

Which Brings us to the point

The Naughty Nymphomaniac Nurse:

This one, as far as I can see is a combination of the sweet faced angel of mercy and the empty headed doctor's handmaiden. It's about the idea that nurses are caretakers and should therefore be care taking of every aspect of a patient's care. Including the sexual aspect. It's about the idea that  if a woman is touching a person's body there must be sex involved and she must want that. I've also read that it's about the idea that men when in ill health feel insecure and must use this stereotype to gain at least the illusion of control over the women in charge of his care. Now I don't know about that part. I'll leave it up to the men to talk about.  I feel it certainly has a component of misogyny. There could be an argument made that this is a continuation of the Madonna / whore ideology.
Just a quick note here. Nurses who sleep with their patients lose their jobs and licenses.
What I'll tell you is that this lovely little stereotype can cause your average nurse no end of trouble. I've heard some nursing students say that they might not introduce themselves as nurses when meeting new people for fear of this idea.
 I've personally had to deflect the wandering hands of more than one patient who subscribed to the idea of the nurse as a whore. I've had men tell me they don't date nurses because of this. I've had men want to date me assuming I'd sleep with them right away because I'm a nurse.
Here's a question for consideration: are there  nurses out there who will quash their inherent sexuality to avoid the label of the naughty nurse?  Are we Damned if we do, damned if we don't?

 I feel these stereotypes undermine us as professionals. We can't be taken seriously if  all we are is either empty headed or  sexual vessels or raging psychotics.

Which is a damned shame considering how much of the care of patients we are responsible for and therefore have insight  into. Insight that is used to craft policies that direct care and legislation.

So consider this, Internet. The next time you want to make a naughty nurse joke: out there someplace is a woman or man who had  to spend years in school studying  their brains out who is  working overtime in a place that may look down on them for trying to take time off while fighting tooth and nail for the rights of patients and to be taken seriously as a professional who may have to fight off patients who think they're there to "service" people while your smart ass makes a crack on twitter.