The specialty at the Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Ariz., is a quadruple bypass burger that's piled high with four half-pound beef patties, cheddar cheese and bacon.

But it's not the burger's fat content or cholesterol payload that has raised the ire of the Baltimore-based Center for Nursing Advocacy. Rather, it's how the burger is served -- by waitresses dressed in revealing, naughty-nurse uniforms.

The waitresses wear stethoscopes and nurse hats. They also wear fishnet stockings and cleavage-baring tops. On occasion, they jump into their customers' arms.

Sexual availability is not the image that Sandy Summers thinks should be projected for those in the caring profession.

A former trauma center nurse, Summers is founder and executive director of the Center for Nursing Advocacy, which polices the portrayal of nurses around the world. The biggest violators, in the center's view, are those who connect nursing with titillation.

That is where the Heart Attack Grill comes in. Summers is pressing the restaurant to drop its sexy nurse motif and has begun a letter-writing campaign against it.

"The endless association of sex and nurses leads people to believe that maybe nurses really are available to provide for the sexual needs of patients and physicians," Summers said. "It degrades the professional image, it demoralizes practicing nurses and drives any self-respecting person away from considering the profession."

But so far, most of the outrage has been directed at Summers. In e-mail messages, she has been called a "feminazi," a "pathetic liberal whack job" and worse. One critic suggested she rename her group "Advocates for Uptight Women."

A freedom fighter?

The human target of Summers' campaign is Jon Basso, owner of the Heart Attack Grill, but he is clearly relishing the dust-up. In his mind, he is nothing less than a freedom fighter on behalf of men who like women and red meat.

"The nutshell of it is that I'm the press' whipping boy because I'm considered rather repugnant by traditional standards," Basso said in a phone interview. "But I believe I'm within my First Amendment rights to do whatever ... I want to because it's not Nazi Germany yet. Give it 20 years, and it may be."

Basso said his restaurant is "a real guy's place." The menu includes cigarettes, burgers, beer and Flatliner Fries, which are "fried in pure lard." The restaurant, which opened last December, also features a Valentine's Day Massacre on Feb. 14. The event is for single men only, and the waitresses, Basso said, "are a little bit more scantily clad."

He has devoted his Web site to chronicling his spat with Summers, posting letters from supporters and detractors. He notes with considerable satisfaction that the fight has improved business. Last week, after CNN carried a report on the debate, Basso said, he had so many customers he ran out of beef by 7 p.m.

"We're not trying to be rude or disgrace anybody," said Stacey Hoffmann, 23, who has worked at the Heart Attack Grill for a month. "I think nurses are great. It's a wonderful profession. If I had a better stomach, I might go into it myself."

If she had, she would have followed in the footsteps of her mother and her aunt, both of whom have been nurses. So if anyone respects nursing, Hoffmann said, she does. So what does her mother think of her new job?

"She's not aware," Hoffmann said. "She lives in Connecticut."

More stereotypes

Summers insists she is no prude. She has no objection to short skirts or sexual imagery, only their association to the serious work of nursing.

"We're all for people having active, healthy sex lives," she said. "Go ahead and have sex, but if they could please leave the nursing image out of it. Fantasize about someone else."

The naughty nurse imagery used by the Heart Attack Grill is but one of several stereotypes Summers is battling. There is also the handmaiden (someone who exists to serve others), the battle ax (the Nurse Ratched type) and the angel (the virtuous, inexhaustible nurse who doesn't need breaks to eat or sleep).

"If we don't try to change the popular perception about who nurses are and what they do, we'll never be able to get the funding we need to save lives," Summers said.

Her organization has successfully lobbied Gillette, Schick, Coors and Wal-Mart to change ad campaigns that featured nurses in a negative light. The center has also gone after TV dramas such as "ER," "Grey's Anatomy" and "House."

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