For 15th straight year, nurses top Gallup poll of most trusted professions

In its annual end-of-year exercise, the Gallup organization surveys public perception of the “honesty and ethical standards” of various professions, and nursing retains the top billing, with 84% of the public rating them “high or very high.” Pharmacists come in at No. 2 and medical doctors (tied with engineers) at No. 3. These positions have been relatively unchanged for several years, although medical doctors tend to bounce up and down by several points from year to year (they're down two points this year, to 65%). The Gallup analysts note that "Healthy majorities of the American public continue to show a willingness to trust the honesty and ethical standards of healthcare providers -- nurses, doctors, pharmacists and dentists. However, Americans do not, by and large, rate the honesty and ethical standards of American professions highly ...  For 10 of those professions, fewer than one in five Americans rated the standards as "high" or "very high" -- including key aspects of American society such as lawyers, lawmakers and business executives."

“I challenge those charged with making health policy at the facility, local, state and national levels, to include the trusted voice of nurses at the decision-making table,” notes Pamela Cipriano, PhD, RN, president of the American Nursing Assn, in commenting on the results. “And given nursing’s frontline perspective on health care delivery, we offer a point of view that is unmatched.”

And the pharmacist perspective, from B. Douglas Hoey, RPh, CEO of the National Community Pharmacists Assn: “It is time for payers and policymakers to better utilize the accessibility, expertise and public trust in pharmacists. NCPA will carry that message into 2017 as health care reform efforts accelerate and the shift toward a value-based care system continues.”