We seem to have a glut of nursing shows right now, and I’ve been wondering why. Nursing shows aren’t new, per se. If you look back through history, you’ve got Julia, the 1968 series in which Diahann Carroll played a young nurse and single mom. The show was groundbreaking for a variety of reasons, namely because it starred an African American woman, raising a son alone because her husband died in the Vietnam war. That’s a lot of drama right there, especially given the era in which this show aired.
There have been a lot of shows that included nurses — certainly every doctor show that’s ever aired, including M*A*S*H, ER, China Beach, and all the hundreds of other medical shows. There was even a 1991 show called Nurses, which, apparently, lasted three seasons, though I have no recollection of it.
Right now or coming soon, we’ve got several shows with a nurse in the lead role:
Nurse Jackie stars Edie Falco as Jackie Peyton, a hard-edged, drug-addicted head nurse who sleeps with the pharmacist, and goes home to a loving husband and kids. It’s really hard to categorize this show, because it’s gritty, edgy, dramatic, funny, and heartbreaking all at the same time. Aryeh has had a tough time with this show, but it’s fared better in my reviews over at TV Squad.
HawthoRNe stars Jada Pinkett Smith as a nurse, and while I haven’t watched a single episode, Aryeh also had a tough time with this show before finally giving up the ghost.
Mercy, which premieres on Sept. 23, stars Taylor Schilling as a nurse who returns to Mercy Hospital after a military tour in Iraq. Ivey is so-so on it, but says it could work if the show works out a few kinks.
Why all the nursing shows right now? Are we more interested in the unsung heroes these days — the folks who do all the work but get the least credit? Have the TV writers run the gamut on doctors, and are thus turning to nurses to carry the medical-show torch?
Or, since nursing is still primarily a female profession, are there simply more amazing females who can carry a lead show all on their own — thanks, perhaps, to the groundbreakers like Diahann Carroll so many years ago?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Please share in the comments below.
Clacked by Jane Boursaw 
on Aug 14, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT
There’s a national shortage of nurses, so there’s a lot of emphasis being placed on nursing education. That means a lot of PR out there about the importance of nurses and making it a career. I work at a community college with a nursing program, and a LOT of people looking for a second career are looking to nursing.
Doctors are an elite, nurses are working class. This is simply the traditional medical show, but from the perspective of the trenches instead of the hospital administrators or doctors.