On the 250th anniversary of US Independence Day, two Penn Nursing leaders call on nurses to embrace their historic roles as advocates for social justice and community health July 4, 2026 –…
The sophomore blues
2025-26 TV Overview! Last year’s wave of physician-centric new Hollywood shows returns Sophomore TV dramas Doc (Fox), Watson (CBS), and Brilliant Minds (NBC) all look set to continue telling audiences that nurses are low-skilled physician helpers. Even the…
Nonstop
BBC radio show highlights new Swiss film about a tough nursing shift In July 2025 the BBC radio show The Arts Hour featured writer-director Petra Volpe, who discussed her film The Late Shift. The movie…
The Professional
New film highlights one nurse’s struggle with understaffing Petra Volpe’s powerful 2025 drama The Late Shift follows a hospital nurse juggling the physical and psychological needs of 13 patients on one intense shift. Viewers…
Unprofessional
Administration plans to cut federal loans for nursing education In November 2025, the Trump Administration proposed to limit loans for graduate students in nursing and other predominantly female fields by excluding them…
Barriers
The New York Times on the life of nurse Eddie Bernice Johnson In January 2024, the New York Times had a helpful obituary for Johnson, who had died at 89. Johnson was the first nurse…
The Billionaire Welfare Bill Is a Death Machine
Below is a transcript to our video, part 4 of We’re All Going to Die, But Does It Have To Be So Soon? Welcome to the third episode of “We’re all going…
550,000 Lives Lost
The dismantling of USAID has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives with millions more on the way. Elon Musk’s behavior is reprehensible.
Kristi Noem’s allergic reaction
Kristi Noem had an allergic reaction to something. Why would anyone from the band of science-deniers go to a hospital for care when they don’t believe in science? Nurses condemning cruelty that…
Nurses Issue Call for Global Resistance to Trump Administration’s Attack on Public Health
As nurses and their supporters, we urge the public to make immediate and sustained efforts to resist the Trump Administration’s agenda to destroy global health. We have devoted our professional lives to…
Burn the witch
Questions raised about the conviction of nurse Lucy Letby Recently New Yorker journalist Rachel Aviv examined whether British NICU nurse Lucy Letby should have been convicted of killing infants in her care….
Malicious
The Philippines-based news website Rappler reported that nurses at one local hospital were being required to wear adult diapers so they could care for Covid-19 patients for 12 hours straight, without breaks
Pride and prejudice and zombie nurses
Nurses call for an end to “sexy nurse” costumes In late October 2023, the Guardian ran a good item on calls by the Spanish nursing council for an end to the naughty and killer…
Brilliant
New health-related shows are here, and some have nurse characters. The central character on the NBC mockumentary St. Denis Medical seems to be a senior nurse. And ABC’s Doctor Odyssey, set on a cruise ship, actually has two nurse characters. But other new shows seem to fit the physician-centric model of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, especially Fox’s Doc and NBC’s Brilliant Minds. In any case, good portrayals of nursing will return, on the long-running Call the Midwife (BBC/PBS) and Virgin River (Netflix).
Asking if Lucy Letby was wrongly convicted
Nurse advocates in the UK have urged us to help raise awareness of their serious doubts about the recent conviction of NICU nurse Lucy Letby The UK nurse advocates told us that…
Careers of the future
The Philadelphia Inquirer on nursing and the world of STEM A good April 2024 piece in the Inquirer highlighted the efforts of two local nursing professors to increase the U.S. government’s recognition of nursing as a STEM…
Nurse of America
Remembering nursing pioneer Claire Fagin. In January 2024, U.S. nursing leader Claire Fagin died at the age of 97. Obituaries appeared in many major publications. One of the best was in the Washington Post. That one focused on Fagin’s year leading the University of Pennsylvania, but also on her key role in pushing nursing forward, through her forceful advocacy and emphasis on a stronger academic curriculum. At the Truth About Nursing, we especially appreciated her mentoring and support over the last two decades.
The 2022 Nursing in the Media Awards
The Truth About Nursing announces our list of the best and worst media portrayals of nursing for 2022! We regret that transitions this past year again delayed these awards. The year 2022…
A job with your best friends
Fall 2023 TV Overview! Despite the Hollywood strikes, good portrayals of nursing are coming on the BBC’s Call the Midwife and on Netflix’s Virgin River. But when more shows appear, the prime-time landscape will likely…
“A Letter to My Abuser”
Ohio nurse’s letter highlights desperate workplace conditions November 6, 2023 – Today USA Today had a long piece about Ohio nurse Tristin Kate Smith, who wrote a powerful “Letter to my abuser”…