I had heard about drug-abusing,abrasive Nurse Jackie, but since I don't subscribe to HBO, I can't offer an opinion.

But since I do subscribe to the channel that broadcasts HawthoRNe, I thought I'd give it a try. After all, I'm always looking for medical shows that give an accurate picture of what nurses really do. I'm afriad I'll have to keep on looking.

It's not because they show Nurse Christina Hawthorne doing non-professional things like acting as a receptionist, or saying "the doctor will see you, now."

Au contraire, our heroine goes above and beyond her nursely duties. Even though she is the chief nursing officer, she finds time to be in every department in the hospital. In just one day. She's in the nursery,arranging lodging for a homeless new mom; she diagnoses a patient in the MRI room, by merely glancing at the results of the scan; she decides the type of surgery a patient should have, and, my favorite, she saves a patient's life by grabbing the paddles out of a doctor's hands and reviving the patient herself. Whatta woman! Think of all the money the hospital can save! She's taken the place of a radiologist, one surgeon and a social worker.
AND, she still has time to play mother confessor to the nurses who work under her.

Oh sure, some of the doctors get aggrivated with her. But, hey - she's so darn altruistic. And spunky too.

Let's see how great she is after dealing with staffing issues, quality meetings,new Medicare regulations and surprise visits by the Joint Commission. If that doesn't de-spunkify her, nothing will.