The profession of nursing is stereotyped. Nurses are commonly expected to be female and so male nurses are often stereotyped as effeminate. In forms of low humour such as get-well cards, nurses are commonly portrayed as bimbos and, in medical drama and novels, nurses are commonly portrayed as young, female, single, childless and white. Studies have identified several such popular stereotypes including:

1. Handmaiden – the female assistant of a physician, who is usually portrayed as male. Handmaidens are depicted without an independent knowledge base of their own—knowing only a tiny subset of what physicians know and following all physician commands.
2. Naughty nurse, sex symbol or nymphomaniac
3. Bimbo or airhead, exemplified by Betty Sizemore in Nurse Betty
4. Angel, exemplified by the popular accounts of Florence Nightingale – The Lady with the Lamp
5. Battleaxe,  torturer or , exemplified by Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Annie Wilkes from Misery
6. Homosexual male
7. Alcoholic, exemplified by Sarah Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit
8. Buffoon or klutz, exemplified by Greg Focker in Meet the Parents
9. Woman in White