Showtime marked its highest-rated season premiere ever this past June with its new series, “Nurse Jackie.” The show focuses on a character named Jackie Peyton, portrayed by actress Edie Falco, who is an emergency room nurse at New York City’s All Saints’ Hospital. Dubbed a dark comedy, the program elicited an immediate outcry from real-life nurses after the airing of the first episode.
While every profession includes employees of various levels of competence and character, Nurse Jackie possesses a curious combination of high skills with extremely questionable ethics. Although appearing to perform quite ably and treat most patients compassionately, these qualities appear unrealistic to real-life nurses when contrasted most specifically with Nurse Jackie’s substance abuse problem. Her addiction to painkillers, supposedly begun through her efforts to treat a bad back, is viewed by many in the profession as quite unsafe and rather stupid.
Along with the addiction problem, Nurse Jackie has also been portrayed as sexually immoral (within the hospital setting) and as a thief, albeit as a Robin Hood-type character who steals from the rich to give to the poor. As direct care workers who interact with the public daily in oftentimes sensitive situations, nurses are concerned with the negative impression that viewers of the show could easily form of their profession. Those in the health care industry are called to a high standard in their jobs and expected to follow a strict medical code of ethics. Nurse Jackie’s character seems to degrade many of the vocation’s best qualities.