Generally, I think NurseWeek is the least biased of the nursing news magazines I get (not a strong statement in light of what it is being compared to). However, I am in total agreement with Diana Barret and Rodelle Brehm (Readers Respond, Oct. 9).

Nursing leadership is out of sync with its members. One way to verify this, of course, is to ask us. I proposed this very idea in an e-mail to the ANA, after learning of its endorsement of Gore for president. I also suggested that this endorsement shows elitist leadership. Interestingly, I have had no response.

Equally irritating to me is the amount of my membership dues given to candidates and issues to which I am diametrically opposed. A U.S. Supreme Court decision (The Communications Workers v. Beck 1988) says that "a union cannot use membership dues for purposes other than collective bargaining, contract administration or grievance adjustment." President Clinton chose to ignore that decision when he came into office. Of course, this action guarantees the devotion of union leaders to him and his followers, and pads the DNC budget to further their agenda.

Gov. Bush will help health care by providing a framework that diminishes the intrusion of government and places more control into the hands of those who devote their lives to taking care of America’s sick. I am ready for leadership with vision, character and a commitment to uphold our Constitution.

I am interested in the political views of other nurses in the remaining days leading up to Nov. 7.

Nurses are professionals and we need to be prepared to prioritize and describe what it will take to solve the nursing shortage. But I don’t know why the editor was "stunned" at the perception that taking up nursing would be seen as not meeting expectations and aspirations ("Profession or Trade?" Editor’s Note, Oct. 9). Our profession, as well as others, have confused the issue by identifying with "trade workers" through alignment with unions.

As a bedside nurse and nurse manager, I have worked in union and nonunion organizations. While there were surely exceptions as there are to every rule, the patterns I have seen are clear.

Nurses in the unionized facilities are more likely to develop the pattern of what can be described as "blue-collar thinking." They focus on issues of pay, benefits and personal priorities. Filing labor grievances appears to be at least as important as patient care. The more basic their educational preparation, the more likely this pattern. I fear that the growing trend toward unionization is a true threat to our status as professionals as is our failure to make the BSN the basic professional preparation.

As far as decisions about our priorities, they are being made daily, one by one, by individual nurses. To achieve our dream of building our profession as the profession of choice for young people, nurses must be mentored and nurtured by other nurses to continue to grow and develop. Individually, we need to focus on our growth as professionals rather than a job. If we are growing professionally, we can’t help but grow as care providers. The issue of whether Nurse A was called to work an extra shift before Nurse B should never be a priority over our professional responsibilities.

How can we be professionally significant as long as we allow third parties to intercede for us as a profession? How can we be taken seriously if we can’t hold our own on the most basic levels of collegiality?

Rather than unions, we need more, stronger, truly professional associations that promote – no, demand – collegiality, mentorship and higher education as the basis of professional nursing. And, we need nurses who are educationally prepared to understand their strengths and weaknesses so that they can build upon them and participate in strong professional associations.

While I am glad to see nurses so politically involved – on both sides of the campaign – I felt compelled to respond to the anti-abortion position espoused in this week’s letters.

The writer asserts that abortion services should be denied because those patients who are faced with an unwanted pregnancy were somehow irresponsible – or not "accountable" – while other patients are "accountable" and therefore more deserving of limited public health funds.

However one feels about abortion, this argument is specious. Obviously, continuing an unwanted pregnancy will cost far more than terminating it. These unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, if continued, are likely to be high-risk due to late or limited prenatal care, maternal substance abuse and other maternal lifestyle factors which make for complicated and costly care. Many undesired pregnancies resulted from a birth control failure, or the discovery of a serious birth defect. Are those patients not sufficiently accountable to deserve funding? Who should sit in judgment to decide whether the "irresponsible" patient should not have a publicly funded abortion, while another patient has a better excuse for terminating the unplanned pregnancy and should receive services?

Should we then assess whether other patients, whom the writer claims are accountable, really are morally deserving of public health money? For example, a lifelong smoker with COPD or lung cancer, a patient with complications of diabetes, which he was "irresponsible" about controlling, the patient with HIV or hepatitis acquired through poor lifestyle choices? These self-imposed, chronic conditions cost far more than terminating an unplanned pregnancy. And, if the woman is so irresponsible that she uses publicly funded abortion as her first line of birth control, do we really want her forced to continue what likely will be an unhealthy, high-risk pregnancy?

Yes, it is very frustrating to see limited resources spent on patients who do not take care of themselves, but no nurse involved in public health can be judgmental about who does or does not deserve care. A nurse’s personal moral standards should not be imposed to deny care on the basis that some patients appear to be more accountable or deserving than others.

I agree with Daniel Pesut that nurses are not often portrayed accurately through the media ("Image Overhaul," Oct. 23). I am compelled to respond however, that The Learning Channel came to Children’s Hospital in Orange County and filmed at least one nurse in a very "real" way.

One of my colleagues, Charmaine Taylor, RN, was profiled in the hour-long episode titled "Kids vs. Cancer." She was "wired" several times and followed by the camera crew to capture what exactly a nurse in the pediatric oncology unit does and how she responds in a caring and compassionate way. Susie Schelling was quoted as saying, "If I could design the ideal show, I’d like to see something that actually shows what nurses do each day, including the emotional moments with patients. It would be more about the soul of this particular RN than some big drama."

When "Kids vs. Cancer" aired on Oct. 9, Charmaine Taylor embodied the ideal RN for the media. She showed some of the playfulness that the nurses have with their familiar patients, the tasks expected and accomplished on a daily basis, and her love of the nursing profession. Charmaine gave an informal teaching session with a teen-age patient, and the audience was privileged to observe Charmaine administer another patient’s "last chemo." Her compassion and desire to serve her patients came through to all who viewed the show.

It is my fervent hope that The Learning Channel will rebroadcast this show, and that the general public will again see it and realize this indeed is what an RN of the 21st century is like.

I just read the article "Image Overhaul" and it reminded me of a paper I wrote on the same subject while in a BSN program. It was in 1989 and some of my examples were "MASH," "Trapper John, MD" and "Nightingales." How interesting that the nursing image hasn’t changed much.

In your sidebar article, "Nurses Watching Nurses," you listed a TV movie with Maureen O’Hara (of Jane fame). Jane was played by Maureen O’Sullivan. O’Hara is famous for "Miracle on 32nd Street."

Isn’t it interesting that the two nurse characters in the movies mentioned are played by men? I wonder if that was done by the movie producers to improve the image of a nurse. Would the movie not be as good if the nurse was a buxom female in a short dress?

I just finished reading your article on the media’s portrayal of nurses and felt the need to respond. It’s not surprising that so many people have such a narrow-minded view of nursing and what nurses really do. Unless they themselves or someone they love is actually being cared for by a nurse, most people only have the Hollywood stereotype of a nurse or negative media stories to rely upon as their image of what nurses really do.

If movie producers want to portray nurses realistically, perhaps they should do a little more "field research" by going to hospitals, nursing homes and clinics and observing real nurses in action. I also find it disturbing to read about nurses or nursing errors in the newspaper, as there are rarely any comments from the nurses in these articles explaining their point of view.