For 22 years, nurses have consistently been ranked the “most trusted profession,” according to the yearly Gallup poll. This year, nurses remain the most trusted profession, with 78% of U.S. adults currently believing nurses have high honesty and ethical standards. However, that is down seven percentage points from 2019 and 11 points from its peak in 2020. Nurses were seen as having “high” or “very high” moral standards by 79 percent of U.S. adults in 2023, but that’s down from a high of 89 percent at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The drop reflects patient dissatisfaction, but also nurses dissatisfaction with the profession in a post-pandemic world.