Nurse Jackie Essay

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Nurse Jackie is a television series that is set in a hospital environment. Within the hospital there is an interdisciplinary approach which focuses more on the work the nurses perform. Jackie is the main character who we follow and is an emergency department (ED) nurse. Jackie is a hard working nurse who is experiencing severe back pack pain thus causing her to use narcotics to control the pain. That said, this paper will explore how nursing and Jackie’s character is portrayed in the show as well as how Jackie can be seen as a leader (Austin, 2009). The health care workers in the show Nurse Jackie, are portrayed as as hard working professionals who hold a high regard for patient care. The nurses follow an established dress code which requires …show more content…

Jackie respected her elderly patient’s choice not to receive care, but was an advocate for him to remain in the ED to eat his chicken soup (Hudis, 2009; Sullivan, 2012). The patient knew he was dying and did not want any further treatment except for his wife’s soup. Jackie respected his decision and fought for him to stay in the ED to consume his soup. This is a form of advocacy because Jackie had to convince her nurse manager to keep him in a bed. This kept the patient calm and actually relaxed him so much that he ended up dying by the end of the episode (Hudis, …show more content…

Jackie advocates for the patient’s daughter to be at her bedside, because the daughter is the main caregiver, even though the ICU has an age restriction of having to be at least 14 (Austin, 2009). Further, Jackie takes it upon herself to ensure that the patient has enough required medications to last a few weeks. She achieved this by taking the medications from the pharmacy and smuggling them out of the hospital by giving them to the daughter. The patient’s daughter was extremely grateful and appreciated all of Jackie’s actions (Austin, 2009). From the above examples, nurse Jackie displayed a servant leadership style. Jackie fits the servant leadership style because she has a desire to care for (serve) her patients (Sullivan, 2012). Jackie is aware of the needed changes in order to improve her ability to patient care regardless of the level or complexity of care to provide comfort. Further, Jackie is empathetic towards her patients by understanding their decisions and showing empathy with their decisions. Lastly, Jackie does persuade her managers and pharmacists to ensure that the required care is given to support her patients (Sullivan,

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