TV Series Hot

Gob-smacklingly stupid or hip advertising? I’m leaning towards the former. Via CBC:

A Stockholm hospital that published an online ad looking to fill a summer position with a nurse who is “TV-series hot” says it was “written to catch people’s attention.” 

“We want people to be curious and have a little imagination,” said Elisabeth Gauffin, head nurse at Stockholm South General Hospital (Södersjukhuset) to the Metro newspaper.

My Emergency department colleagues

The ad read, in Swedish: 

“You will be motivated, professional, and have a sense of humour. And of course, you will be TV-series hot or a Söder hipster. Throw in a nurse’s education and you are welcome to seek a summer job at Södersjukhuset’s emergency department.”

(“Söder” literally means “south,” but here refers to Södermalm, a fashionable district in Stockholm. Think “Soho.”)

The hospital’s nursing manager said the phrasing wasn’t meant to exclude anyone based on looks. 

I (sort of) get what the hospital was trying to do. Readers may have noticed I’m not without a sense of humour. But I’m not sure the “And of course” phrasing of the ad effectively signals the intended irony. It’s a little pathetic the hospital needs to rely on a tired old cliché to recruit nurses. Ultimately, I think, the ad trivializes what nurses actually do in Emergency departments, and reinforces public perceptions and stereotypes. As a well-seasoned RN, I would be somewhat disinclined to work there. But maybe it’s all lost in translation, and the ad is deliciously funny in the original Swedish.

Incidentally, for the record, I am not “TV series hot.” On the other hand, I know to work the buttons on a defibrillator.

[Thanks to my friend Leigh for sending this along to me. Her comment: “Laugh or cry?? Mostly exasperation I think. Add more horror that the survey results show that people think this is appropriate!”]