Nurses are once again the most trusted professionals, according to the annual Gallup’s Honesty and Ethics ranking.
This 2015 is the 14th straight year that the public has voted nursing as the most honest and ethical profession in America.
A total of 85 percent of the respondents gave a “very high” or “high” rating on the honesty and ethical standards of nurses, setting them 17 percentage points above the next highest-rated professions, pharmacists.
“This is the highest point nurses have obtained so far, with no serious competition atop”
With an 85 percent honesty and ethics rating, this is the highest point nurses have obtained so far — with no serious competition atop the Gallup ranking this year.
“It’s essential that we leverage this trust to lead and implement change in the health care system,” said Pamela F. Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of the American Nurses Association (ANA). “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.”
Since nurses were added to the list in 1999, they have topped the ranking every year with the exception of 2001, when firefighters were included on the list on a one-time basis, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Here is a look at the other professions rated in Gallup’s poll, ranked by percentage of “very high” and “high” ratings in descending order.
- Pharmacists — 68 percent
- Medical physician — 67 percent
- High school teachers — 60 percent
- Police officers — 56 percent
- Clergy — 45 percent
- Funeral directors — 44 percent
- Accountants — 39 percent
- Journalists — 27 percent
- Bankers — 25 percent
- Building contractors — 25 percent
- Lawyers — 21 percent
- Real estate agents — 20 percent
- Labor union leaders — 18 percent
- Business executives — 17 percent
- Stockbrokers — 13 percent
- Advertising practitioners — 10 percent
- Car salespeople — 8 percent
- Members of Congress — 8 percent
- Telemarketers — 8 percent
- Lobbyists — 7 percent
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Results from this poll were based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 2-6, 2015, with a random sample of 824 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.