Students ’ Television Habits Ethics Education, Television, and Invisible Nurses

Televised medical dramas often fail to include the nursing role in resolution of ethical dilemmas. Since the nursing role is portrayed inaccurately, excerpts from these dramas should not be included in the educational setting. Doing so would damage understanding between the health pro-fessions by wrongly sustaining physicians ’ beliefs that they are the sole decision-makers in health care and by wrongly teaching nurses that they play no meaningful role in resolv-ing ethical dilemmas. Czarny and colleagues (2008) report that a sizable num-ber of medical and nursing students watch television medi-cal dramas, and the authors note that these dramas may fos-ter thought and discussion of bioethical issues among these students. Although many of these programs provide diver-sion, entertainment and a compelling way to study ethics