Nursing has once again been named the most trustworthy profession in America
Trust your nurses, everyone else does
Nursing has once again been named the most trustworthy profession in America. In its annual Honesty and Ethics rankings, Gallup Polls found that 85% of Americans rated nurses’ honesty and trustworthiness “very high,” or “high.” The runner-up, pharmacists, only received a “highly trusted” score of 68%.
As a manager, you should take confidence in the fact that the general population places more trust in your nursing staff than they do physicians (67%), high school teachers (60%), police officers (56%), or even clergy (45%).
“It’s essential that we leverage this trust to lead and implement change in the healthcare system,” said Pamela F. Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of the American Nurses Association (ANA), in response to the poll. “Hospitals, healthcare systems and other organizations are lacking an important perspective and can’t make fully competent decisions if they don’t have registered nurses at the board table or in the C-Suite. That’s why ANA is a member of the Nurses on Boards Coalition, working to place 10,000 nurses on boards by 2020.”
This is the 14th straight year that nursing has taken the top spot since being added to the list in 1999. The only thing that’s ever interrupted nursing’s winning streak was the one-time inclusion of firefighters to the list in the wake of 9/11.
Side note: It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that car salespeople (8%), telemarketers (8%), Congress members (8%), and lobbyists (7%) were voted the least trusted professions in the country.
This article originally appeared on The Leader’s Lounge: A nursing blog from Strategies for Nurse Managers.