Nurses ranked #1 in patient satisfaction, according to poll

A new Gallup poll has named nurses first and doctors a distant second in the 2023 health care provider rankings. Released Dec. 18, the new survey revealed that 82% of those asked rated nurses positively — saying that nurses provide excellent or good medical care. Meanwhile, only 69% of those asked ranked doctors positively.

Conducted through most of November, the results are a culmination of the 2023 Health and Healthcare survey. This is far from the first time American hospital visitors ranked U.S. nurses highly in a survey however.

“Nurses’ top rank among healthcare providers underscores their premier position among U.S. occupations, generally, in Gallup’s annual honesty and ethics of professions ratings,” Gallup reported. “Most recently, in December 2022, nurses led the list of 18 professions rated, with 79% of Americans saying they had ‘very high’ or ‘high’ honesty and ethical standards. Medical doctors ranked second, at 62%.”

Ever since 2010, doctors have begun to lag behind nurses in annual polling results. Nurses are, in fact, the only health care professionals to have seen a positive change in polling numbers concerning Americans’ views of health care professionals at providing quality medical care over the past 13 years, according to Gallup.

“Not only are nurses widely respected for the care they provide, but they have avoided the steep decline in ratings that has befallen much of their industry,” Gallup reported.

“Gallup twice previously asked Americans to rate the medical care provided by various healthcare entities, in 2003 and 2010, finding little change in the ratings of most of them over those seven years. Since then, however, positive perceptions are sharply lower for most. The exceptions are walk-in clinics — whose rating is roughly the same as 2010 -- and nurses, who are six percentage points lower than in 2010.”