The Indispensability of Nurses - Essay Example

Our world since its origination has been a ‘hotbed’ of activity. Activity in the sense, we humans have been showing activeness both mentallyand physically. But, that activity can be stalled by some impediments or other. And one of the biggest impediments, which can stop the human’s activity, is the ill health, which can occur any moment. When it occurs, the stoppage of human activity may vary from being temporary to being totally permanent. In that case, the medical setup can only make the stoppage of activity, a temporary one, and remove the threat of the permanent one. And in the medical setup, the role of nurse is vital because he/she is the one who can help the human get up from the hospital bed and enter the ‘hotbed’ of activity, the world outside. Caring Paper Introduction with a purpose statement Nurse is an omnipresent individual, having presence in every medical setup. Nurse enters the ‘picture’ when victim cum patient is in the accident site or hospital or even in the house. And Nurse is the one who along with doctors can redirect the patients into the safe environs of their home, stopping them from ‘going’ to the graveyard. So, this shows how crucial nurse’s role in the lives of many humans, and the purpose of this paper is to show, how the care given by the nurse in every stage is God like care. Definition Caring can be defined as the activity, in which the destabilized physical and mental part of the human is looked after and stabilized by another human, using medical approach with ‘personal touch’. “Caring is a practice of human caring, geared towards subjective inner healing process and the life world of the experience. Personal requiring unique caring; feeling; arts and a framework called curative factors (Watson 1999). When one compares the secular viewpoint with the professional viewpoint, one can accept the point that both mean the same, but in different perspectives. That is, secular definition concentrates on the steps involved in caring while the professional definitions concentrate on the external and internal aspects of caring. On one hand, Secular definition focuses on both the patient and the nurse. On the other hand, the professional definition doesn’t involve or place human angle directly. The nurse, when he/she enters the field of medicine and into the hospital, he/she should be prepared to play various roles. Various roles in the sense, nurse’s duty will not be restricted to a single domain, he /she has to spread his/her work to the various sections of the hospital and also outside the hospital. Inside the hospital, the nurse’s role will start the moment a victim enters the hospital. That is, the entering victim will be taken care by the Admission Nurse, who plays a good supporting role to the emergency department doctors, and save the lives of many critical cases. And if the victim is transferred from the emergency section to the operation theatre for an urgent surgery, the nurse in the form of Surgery Center administrator will aid the experts there, with lot of composure. Then, after the patient returns from theatre to the rooms, the nurse’s role continues there also in the form of Bedside nurse. Here, only the nurse’s role will be a predominant one because each and every necessity and emergency will be taken care by the nurse. That is, from basic duties like checking for body temperature to injecting powerful drugs, assessing and managing pain and other symptoms etc, etc… the patient will be under the total care of the nurse. And, this is the crucial period because in the post operative room only, the person recovery can be optimized to the maximum, so he/she can enter the outside world as a normal person who can continue his/her activity without any obstacle, health wise. So, when the patient becomes a normal person due to the personal care of the nurse, his/her role ends with that particular person. Unfortunately sometimes the nurse’s role may extend to the house of the patients also because of the critical nature of the cases, where the nurse has to take a personal care round the clock. There also, nurse’s role will end when the patient recovers but in other cases, he/she has to assist the patient to die peacefully. When one looks at Caring and nursing, it is actually two sides of the same coin, so it is used synonymously with one another. And, when one choses the nursing as his/hers subject of study and as a profession, one should have the inbuilt nature of caring. So, with different views coming from different sectors about caring, it had lead to the formulation of various theories. And, one of the well-known theories is Madeleine Leiningers, Theory of cultural care. Her theory is the only nursing theory, which concentrates on the culture found in the hospital setup. In the theory, she first talks about how the concept of caring is an integral and unique part of the nursing profession. Then, Leininger connects the important qualities of compassion, interest and concern for people to the action of ‘caring’. And also, as an important purpose of the theory she, criticizes the four nursing metaparadigm concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing. But, she does not stop there; she gives her own definition of these concepts in this theory. Apart from discussing the correlation of the theory of caring and nursing, she broadens her views and talks about the care for families, groups, communities, cultures and institutions. She further adds that Culture is “the lifeways of an individual or a group with reference to values, beliefs, norms, patterns, and practices” (Leininger, 1997). With this widening perspective, Leninger wishes that nurse should approach the patient’s family, or community not with a closed mind but with the intention to know about their culture and attitude, which will surely aid in the treatment and care of patient. “This outcome indicates that professional care providers need to be more aware of family support needs and more open to including both patient and family in the treatment planning discussions.” (Klotz, Lakomy, Deardorff) As we have already discussed in the paper, caring is an activity in which a destabilized individual is nourished and rehabilitated back to his/her prime health. And, this nourishing, rehabilitating and importantly stabilizing part is carried out by the individuals, who practice the profession of Nurse. So, ‘nourishing’ can be rewritten as “nurishing”. When, one talk about the roles and duties of the nurse, the care element comes with it. Care will visible in every activity of the nurse right from the moment a nurse enters the hospital for his/hers day or night duty. Otherwise, it will make the patient more vulnerable. That is, a patient who comes under the care of the nurse will have a ‘shattered’ physical condition and mental confidence, literally. In that case, a nurses’ care should involve along with the medicines and drugs, calming words with little dose of Humour, and it will tremendously boost the mental confidence and thereby his/hers physical body to a top condition. Then, the care element of the nurse should be used to suppress the pain of the individual, which may also be of physical and mental origin. So, a nurse could be the human painkilling entity with correct ‘dose’ of care in various processes. “…processes provide a structure of caring that can ultimately create an environment where… can begin to transition from victim to survivor” (Johnston 2006) So, in the final analysis one can conclude that Caring carried out by a nurse will have its impact on the human in every stage of his/her life right from the day, a child is born. That is, when a child is born in a hospital the nurse will be there handling, and then handing over the child to the parents. And, when the child grows up and has some ill health or complications and when he/she returns to the hospital, nurses will be there also. And finally at the deathbed, nurses’ will be there, giving the patient a death with dignity. So, the omnipresent tag is quite apt for the nurse. Reference: Johnston, Brenda J. (2006). Intimate Partner Violence Screening and Treatment: The Importance of Nursing Caring Behaviors. Retrieved March 18, 2007 from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/552755_3 Leininger, M.M. (1997). Overview of the Theory of Culture Care with the Ethnonursing Research Method. Journal of Transcultural Nursing. Jan.-June. 1997 Klotz, Linda K., Lakomy, RN Janet M., Deardorff, RN Kathleen U. Impact of Complementary Healing Modalities on Quality of Life and Treatment Adherence for Family with Breast Cancer: A Case Study Approach. Retrieved March 18, 2007 from http://www.humancaring.org/journal/impacto.pdf Watson, Jean. (1999). Nursing: Human Science and Human Care : A Theory of Nursing. Jones and Bartlett. Read More