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'City o/Roses’
Number 47
Established in 1970
Wednesday • December 4, 2013
Committed to Cultural Diversity >'
J
•'communitv service
Sonya Justic
The Reel Nul
Program aims to dismantle myths of nursing field
D onovan M . S mith
the delivery of medical care. For example, when
T he P ortland O bserver
physicians write a prescription for a patient, it is
What do you picture when you think of a nurse?
actually part of protocol for the nurses to review it, and
Sonya Justice’s theory is that if y o u ’re like a lot of
give the doctor the green light. Justice says it’s also up
people she’s encountered during her 15 years as a
registered nurse in an Intensive Care Unit, you equate to nurses to raise a red flag if they think the doctor could
be making a mistake in treatment, and though it can
her profession somewhat to a second-rate role to
cause friction of egos sometimes, says her own ques­
doctors, a notion she is tiying to destroy with her new *
tioning o f a doctor ’ s decision in the past has led to better
television program Reel Nurses Talk Show.
outcomes for patients.
“M odem 21st century nurses don’t take orders
“Now admittedly our training is not as in-depth as
blindly, and we don’t really consider them orders,” says
theirs to do a medical diagnosis and the treatment, but
Justice, the nurse and producer o f the show on Portland
we have to have an idea of what they are doing or else
Community Media.
it would not be safe for the patients or for us and our
Doctors simply relaying commands and nurses un­
licenses,” she says.
questionably following them was never really how the
People looking to become nurses like her, in fact,
job worked, Justice says.
must be able to competently diagnose a range of
Nurses are expected to function as collaborators in
ailments that range from neurological to circulatory
by
problems in order to even receive their licensing. Facts
like these, Justice, a graduate of a nursing school in
Pittsburgh, says has become lost on the public in large
part because of popular medical dramas that are meant
to entertain and not necessarily inform. And though she
says she regularly enjoys some of these shows herself,
it can be frustrating to watch the nursing field be
demeaned so often through the media.
Fueled by so many other misconceptions about her
job, Justice created her TV program to educate the
public on the real functions of nurses; fittingly she has
titled it. Reel Nurses Talk Show.
The broadcasts balance two of her passions, media
and nursing. For three years now she also has owned
and published an award-winning magazine, Fabulous
continued
yf
on page 5
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