More Opinions on Nurse Jackie

We recently wrote about several new television shows featuring nurses as lead characters. As we mentioned in that post, we are not alone. Theresa Brown, a nurse, last week reviewed Nurse Jackie on the New York Times’ Well blog. After a strong start, Brown is beginning to worry that Jackie may be losing something. She calls on the show’s writers to look to their source material – nursing – for inspiration instead of falling prey to the draw of soap opera drama. Here’s an excerpt:

The first several episodes show Jackie managing the swirling emotions and complicated medical issues of an urban emergency department with compassion and a high degree of expertise…As the series continued, though, it started to look more and more like “General Hospital” and less and less like a real hospital.. Sure, there are nurses who have affairs, maybe even in the hospital (though most nurses wouldn’t have time — just as most nurses wouldn’t have time for Jackie’s sit-down lunches in restaurants). There are nurses who are addicts, just like there are addicts in all professions and walks of life. But when the failings of a nurse as good as Jackie threaten to compromise her ability to do the job, she stops being a nurse.