Guy Rundle claimed that if a reality television show in which contestants vied for an organ transplant were mooted in Australia “Nurse Lumby” would be on hand to “spin” the program.

Well, Guy, it’s Dr Lumby to you. But I’ll wear the “Nurse” title proudly. It may come as news to some of my male colleagues on the left, but nurses aren’t just pretty girls in short uniforms who make people feel better. They are the backbone of our healthcare system. My mother was a nurse who worked night shifts at Newcastle hospital to pay the mortgage. I learnt my feminist politics from her.

It doesn’t take a Melbourne intellectual to spot the ethical problems in a program that asks contestants to compete for a life-saving operation. Too many Australians are already familiar with a real life version of that show given that we live with a healthcare system that seriously disadvantages indigenous people and people in rural and regional areas.

Reality television programs are like any other genre. There is good and bad and they all throw up ethical dilemmas. Of course, for some people, there’s something intrinsically abhorrent about watching ”ordinary” people getting their turn on the box when those same shameless fools should be at home on the vinyl couch dutifully watching people trained at NIDA perform in mediocre comedy shows.

I’ve worked as a consultant to the Big Brother program for two years with Karen Willis, the Director of Rape Crisis NSW. It’s a community organisation, that serves as a very important point of first and ongoing contact for victims of s-xual assault. All our consultancy fees have been donated to Rape Crisis, an organisation that is always in need of financial support.

Karen and I were asked to revise the Big Brother housemate codes of conduct following an incident in 2005 when a male housemate stood behind a female housemate with his p-nis out. The code was put into practice last year when one male housemate held a woman down and the other rubbed his p-nis in her face. Some saw this as a prank. Karen and I were unequivocal that the housemate should be evicted – which they were – and that this was an assault.

Lots of journalists have asked me whether Big Brother promotes s-xual assault because it puts young people in a confined space and gives them alcohol. I ask them whether they think s-xual assault is inevitable in a nightclub or a university college. Perhaps we should shut them down as well.

More recently, there’s been a lot of concern about a Big Brother housemate whose father has died. Some commentators suggest the producers of the show have a duty to tell her even though she and her ill father had decided she shouldn’t be told. Nurses, who are the professionals who usually get closest to patients and their family, could tell these commentators something ethically valuable – the most important thing is to let families make their own decisions.