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ER (1994-present) (Archived 2002-2003 review)
Starring Noah Wyle, Maura Tierney, Laura Innes, Anthony Edwards, George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Eriq La Salle, Sherry Stringfield, Alex Kingston, Goran Visnjic, Ming-Na, Sharif Atkins, Mekhi Phifer, Paul McCrane
Executive Producers: John Wells, Christopher Chulack, Michael Crichton, Jack Orman, Lydia Woodward, Dee Johnson
Constant C Productions and Amblin Television/Warner Bros. Television
NBC
PG-14
2002-03 Season Ratings and Review
Review and Synopsis (2002-03 season)
Portrayal of
Nursing (2003-03 season)
2002-03 Season Ratings and Review
| Nursing rating |  |
Rating guide: |
| Artistic rating |  |
Review and Synopsis (2002-03 season)
The ninth season of "ER" was touted as one of revitalization, with edgier themes and new characters breathing some fresh life into its formula. The series was a little stronger than it had been in the last couple years, with some fairly diverting ideas and less time spent on soapy subplots that had little to do with the ED.
Still, the soap content was fairly high. Gothic playboy Luka teetered on the edge, though he may have found some solace in helping an old friend from Croatia and his work overseas with a Doctors Without Borders-esque NGO. Carter got excruciatingly close to asking Abby to marry him, then pulled back; he may have been reconsidering by season's end, following a harrowing stint in the Congo with Luka's NGO. Abby herself continued to flirt with alcohol, and the show could not resist still more tiresome forays into the bipolar disorder in her family. Elizabeth decided to return to County rather than stay in England following Mark Greene's death. Romano lost his arm to a helicopter rotor, and in the process nearly lost everything else, engendering even more ill will than usual as he spiraled downwards. Weaver, capitalizing on Romano's injury and some unethical but savvy health care assistance to a city alderman, became County's chief of medicine (or as the show persists in calling it, "chief of staff"). But she suffered a miscarriage of the baby she planned to raise with her partner. Newcomers Gallant and Pratt continued their good attitude-bad attitude display, with a much bigger focus on Pratt's struggle to protect his mentally disabled brother and his romance with Jing-Mei. The most compelling plot line may have been the ongoing mystery of why the whining, uninteresting Susan Lewis continued to play such a major role in the show.
The writing quality varied greatly. And the show was not above gimmicks, such as the episode told in reverse chronological order, the gratuitously can-they-say-that-on-prime-time-broadcast-TV sexual patter, and Romano's injury, which suggests that the show feels compelled to physically disable its nastiest characters. But on the whole, "ER" stuck more closely to the work than in recent times, and the results were fairly positive.
Portrayal of Nursing (2002-03 season)
"ER"'s approach to nursing improved slightly. Abby remained the only major nursing character, but she did grow stronger, acting with more confidence in patient care and advocacy. On occasion she questioned physician actions, though usually some kind of physician impairment was still required, such as when she tried to get a hungover Luka to take a closer look at a patient who ultimately died because of medical errors.
The show also seemed to pay a little more attention to the work of the minor nurse characters, giving them a few more substantive lines. At one point the show appeared to admit that nurses do triage, only to suggest at another time that a physician was "stuck at triage." A veteran physician in the Congo episode told a Canadian nurse not to let the newcomer Carter kill anyone, which suggested that she knew enough to prevent a physician from harming a patient (as always on “ER,” this was only because the physician was impaired, in this case by inexperience).
But the series still has not overcome its mistaken belief that physicians supervise nurses. Perhaps the most egregious recent example of this occurred early in the season, when Kerry forcible promoted Abby to ED nurse manager, which of course would be the decision of a nursing executive, and which wrongly suggested that nurse manager is a job no one would want. As nurse manager, Abby did handle a complaint by fellow nurse Chunie against the increasingly troubled Luka, even attending a brief meeting with the Director of Nursing (!). However, consistent with the show’s longstanding reluctance to show nurses in leadership roles, this was the last we heard of the Director of Nursing, and Abby’s supposed management duties were barely mentioned for the rest of the season.
Other misrepresentations include Kerry directing Carter to choose three senior nurses to fire in order to save funds, which again would not be a physician decision (and would not save much money anyway, since senior nurses do not earn much more than junior ones), and Abby's request that Kerry approve her timecard for her time in quarantine at the start of the season (this task would fall to the nurse manager, not the chief of emergency medicine). "ER" continues to show physicians doing clinical nursing tasks that they would almost never do in real life, such as meeting ambulances and doing defibrillation. Likewise, it was almost amusing to see Kerry make a public error giving flu shots, an error that might be more likely than the show knows, given how rarely physicians would actually be involved in such a task. The final episode showed Carter and Luka giving vaccinations in the Congo, then congratulating themselves on saving hundreds of lives; of course, giving vaccinations is typically a nursing task. The show still lacks any portrayal of nurse practitioners or other graduate-prepared nurses, and it has yet to realize that nurses gain skills with experience or to even show nursing students, despite its obsession with the training of physicians.
Thus, though commendable efforts seem to have been made to improve the depiction of nursing on "ER," there remains much room for improvement. Each week, tens of millions of viewers continue to see an ostensibly realistic presentation of cutting edge care in which the few nurses who receive any attention serve mainly as subordinates and romantic foils for the physicians who dominate the show.
Reviewed by Harry Jacobs Summers
Nursing Editor: Sandy Summers, MSN, MPH, RN
Reviewed July 27, 2003
The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Board Members or Advisory Panel of The Center for Nursing Advocacy.
This is the 2002-2003 season 9 review. Also see archives of our "ER" season reviews for:
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