Revival of these degrading portrayals is an insult to the nurse of today

We should be highlighting instead the elevation of a career that has long surpassed the mentality of ‘a young woman bagging a doctor, not becoming one.’

In a day and age when banning books is the norm and officials are allowed to legally create a skewed perspective of how people and cultures are viewed, it is an abomination to the profession of nursing to present a front-page article resurrecting the sexualization of nursing from the literary canon as a cause of celebration. How is it that the Globe determined the “steamy — but dated — take on the life of a nurse” newsworthy? As a registered nurse of more than 30 years, I was shocked to see the historical degradation of the nursing profession revived. We should be highlighting instead the professionalism, bravery, and elevation of a career that has long surpassed the mentality of “a young woman bagging a doctor, not becoming one; and that woman is nearly always white.”

I take no issue with a person’s personal interest or hobby, but the fact that a physician assistant is the founder of the e-book company that would profit off this portrayal of a profession of which she is not a member, and that the Globe would accord the story prime space, especially at the end of National Nurses Month, is offensive and disturbing. I think the Globe owes an apology to “the backbone of the health care system.” I would welcome an article on my historical perspective and the leaps and bounds it took, as a 1988 nursing graduate, to command respect and counter unfair, patronizing, and biased opinion of my profession. Nursing has come a long way, baby.

CATHERINE JONES Wellesley