TV series on nursing set to debut

January 26, 2001

Although the Super Bowl may be high on the list of television events for many this weekend, you'll likely want to make time to watch another notable event: a series on nursing set to debut Sunday on cable TV. (See Cable network to air series on nursing.)

The five-part Discovery Health Channel series called "Nurses," which focuses on nurses from Johns Hopkins, will "reveal the nurses of today," according to press materials. The series consists of five hour-long segments running over two Sundays. The first two episodes will air back to back this Sunday, January 28, at 8 and 9 pm Eastern time. The final three will air on Sunday, February 18, at 8, 9, and 10 pm.

Each segment focuses on a specialty (all times are Eastern time):

Sunday, January 28

8 pm: Pediatrics

9 pm: Critical care

Sunday, February 18

8 pm: Obstetrics/neonatal intensive care

9 pm: Oncology

10 pm: Psychiatry

Mary Evans, RN, C, is featured in the obstetrics/neonatal
intensive care segment of the five-part series "Nurses."
Photo: Discovery Health

The nursing series is part of the network's "Lifeline" medical series and is the first time "Lifeline" has focused on a specific type of clinician, Kathy Quattrone, senior vice president, programming and production at Discovery Health, told Nurses.com in an interview. he five hours of tape were culled from some 600 or 700 hours of raw footage, she said. The project began in March 2000.

Of the episodes, the segments on pediatrics and oncology had special meaning for Quattrone. She was struck, she said, by the involvement of the nurses with patients--that they "feel very deeply the joy having a success and the sadness when a patient dies, and I think that came through."

Quattrone, who didn't have any special exposure to nursing prior to this project, was also struck by "how critical a nurse's expertise is to the whole medical experience that a patient has." She was impressed "that nurses have multiple talents and expertise that they're bringing to a medical situation." Often, she said, the nurse is seen as one who is holding a patient's hand, but not as someone who has made a critical decision about care.

If you miss part of the series, you may be able to catch it in reruns, as the segments will be repeated a number of times through the spring. For a schedule, click to http://health.discovery.com/stories/nurses/nurses.html