Nursing Capstone: An Analysis of an Advanced Role in Professional Nursing - Essay Example

Nursing Capstone: An Analysis of an Advanced Role in Professional Nursing Nursing Capstone: An Analysis of an Advanced Role inProfessional Nursing Background Since time immemorial, nurses have had to meet educational and clinical requirements before serving as nurses in the health sector. In the nursing profession, a nurse has to amass basic learning and experience to accord the best services to patients. This includes application of a range of activities which include advanced practical, theoretical and research competencies, which are based on research. Therefore, the nursing profession will achieve its goals of serving patients with highly effective services from enrolling nurses who have such competencies. Relying on basic learning alone may not offer desirable results. For example, nurses need to use an integrative approach in caring for patients (Jansen and Zwygart-Stauffacher, 2009). This includes using the information they have learned in school as well as the experience acquired during nursing practice. As such, use of expanded range of practical ideas could increase the quality of nursing services. Patient care is an advanced role in the nursing profession, which needs an informed and qualified nurse anesthetist, especially when the patients are in excruciating pain. Since these patients are not in stable health, they need special care and treatment to gain stable health. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the nursing profession and management to ensure they have nurses that have acquired practices and have advanced in ensuring patient care is in high standards (Masters, 2009). A certified nurse anesthetist specialized in patient care should be well developed in education, as they should have trained in nursing schools. After learning in nursing schools, they should have practiced in a nursing environment for a substantial amount of time, which is limited to a year. This gives the nurses an occupational preparation as it is going to be a career in the future. While in the nursing environment, they are introduced to practical lessons where they assist patients and assist doctors in performing various procedures (Grace, 2009). This prepares the nurses to work on complex procedures during their practice. This not only prepares them for such procedures but also gives them the courage to serve patients with diligence. After successful completion of these procedures, nurses that would like to serve in the patient care unit have to be registered. This is a regulation by governing bodies to ensure all the service providers in the health sector are certified. This gives them the legal binding to work and serve patients in the health sector. This is a vital approach in reducing the number of incompetent nurses. This could come with detrimental results, which could worsen a patient’s situation. In bizarre situation, unqualified nurses could cause death by giving inappropriate care and medication. Issues and Challenges Patient care is a delicate role in the nursing profession, which should be dealt with utter responsibility and care. As such, it needs highly competent nurse anesthetists to assist in giving incomparable services. However, the nursing profession has been affected by various setbacks. These issues are making the nursing profession to record dismal results in terms of customer satisfaction. The first professional challenge is the lack of ample qualified nurses. The nursing profession records a high number of patients, year in and year out, which are recorded on a daily basis. Therefore, it should have a large number of qualified nurses. However, the nursing profession is lagging behind due to insufficient number of qualified nurses. Therefore, the few that are deployed in the places of work have to work extra hours to serve all the patients. This leads to fatigue, which does not give satisfactory results. The second issue that affects the nursing profession is the ever-busy schedule. Nurse anesthetists have to work tirelessly to serve all the patients in a facility, since many of these facilities are only operational during the day. As such, it gives an over lead to the nurses that are serving these people. This is especially recorded in the evening hours, when the facilities are almost closing. This affects the nursing profession as some of the patients are not given time to explain their problems exhaustingly. The third professional issue that affects the nursing profession is employee retention (Jansen and Zwygart-Stauffacher, 2009). Some employees take an arguably long time to adapt to an environment. Therefore, retaining such employees in an environment they have adapted to makes the workers work efficiently and effectively. However, the nursing profession is marred with transfer of nurses from one facility to another. This change of places affects the stability of the nurses especially when serving patients. As such, they will take time to adapt to the new environment. This leads to redundancy in giving patients satisfactory care and support. Philosophy in Nursing Nursing a patient to full recovery needs a collection of activities, ranging from physical activities, emotional and spiritual activities. These are the basic parts that will assist a person develop in all the three ways, which are vital in a stable health. For example, a person could be physically fit, but is spiritually grounded. This aspect lowers personal esteem as a person feels “empty” inside. This needs a strong spiritual intervention to balance the three aspects. Similarly, a person could be physically healthy, but he is disturbed in the mind. In such a situation, a person is not stable and the health status of such a person is adversely affected. To make a stable health, the person should be given the appropriate treatment that will relieve the situation. The nursing practice in a holistic environment is a positive accrual especially when a patient needs emotional recovery. Some diseases are controlled better when a patient’s mindset is well prepared. For example, some patients that have stress and are depressed need emotional stability (Masters, 2009). Such patients should be advised to indulge in prayer and seek intervention spiritually. Spirituality is an aspect that strengthens a person’s way of life, especially if the patients in question are believers. Marching a person’s belief and treatment gives a patient a high esteem of getting better. For example, when a patient is in hospital praying, it guides the person’s inner self to believe that the situation is always getting better. This reduces stress levels and reduces emotional distress. Therefore, the person will have a better health, which will be improving gradually. As such, this could help the nursing profession to achieve its targets by reducing stress levels and reducing emotional stress. Though it is not proved physically, it could help in satisfying a patient’s needs and feelings. Caring Patient care not only revolves around giving patients medicine, but also revolves around giving ample care. A caring professional nurse anesthetist is well prepared to give satisfactory care to patients that are in the facility by indulging in several activities. The first activity that shows a caring professional nurse is the way they serve the patients with meals. It is admissible fact that some patients do not have a strong appetite to take their meals. Since the nurses are only prioritizing on the medication, they feel that they do not need the meal all together. This is instigated by the fact that were it a meal, they would get it a home. Therefore, they feel that the meals are not a priority. As such, they will not have the diligence to take the meal since they do not need it more than the medicine (Masters, 2009). A caring nurse should show compassionate and encourage the patients to take the meal. This could be done in various ways. First, the nurses could start with giving appetizers, which include soup and other appetizing dishes. This could be followed by the main meals, which should be served in small helpings. Serving a patient in small helpings sprouts the appetite for a meal. After finishing the meal, the patient could be introduced to fruits. These fruits help in making a stronger person while on treatment. After resting for a while, the nurses could then give the medicine to the patient. With such a routine, the nursing profession will achieve high-end results. A caring nurse anesthetist is one that instills the need for exercises. Many patients spend most of their time in beds and in stationery places, which is not ideal for the body muscles. The body muscles should be stretched and exercised to instill efficiency. Therefore, a nurse that encourages the patients to participate in exercises makes their healing process take pace. Similarly, a caring nurse should be a perfect companion to patients (Jansen and Zwygart-Stauffacher, 2009). Some patients miss family and friends, which could destabilize their emotions. Therefore, a nurse that offers the ideal company makes the patients feel cared for and special. This increases their speed of healing. Ethical Issues The nursing profession is controlled by professional ethics which should be followed strictly by all the nurse anesthetists. This is instilled to ensure the adorable results are achieved in the profession. To begin with, nurses have access to confidential information of patients (Grace, 2009). This information could include private information which should not be relayed to other parties. As such, a nurse should have professional conduct in relaying such information. It should only be given to people that have a right and are mandated to access such information. Giving other parties such information is a breach of the professional ethics. This should be followed with stringent punishment to help protect patient-doctor privileged information. In some instances, a patient’s information could jeopardize the health status of other people, as they should not access such information. For example, when patients openly state to a doctor that they are HIV positive, this information should not be relayed to other people. This could lead to stigmatization from the community and other closely related people. Secondly, anesthetists should not have an iota of pretence by giving wrong information to the patients. The nurses should structure a way of relaying truthful information. Though at times this information could be hurting, the professional ethics state that a nurse should not relay false information to the patients. When a nurse relays false information, a patient could take a wrong decision, which could worsen the situation. However, telling the truth leaves the patient to deal with the reality (Masters, 2009). Though the nursing profession is a wide profession, many are times when nurses have to take an empirical view in the profession. This is especially done when there are contrasting personal beliefs. Legal Implications The nursing profession is governed by rules and regulations, which are deemed to improve on the functionality of the profession. For example, all nurses are required to observe all the rules and regulations that are stipulated in the nursing profession. Disobedience of some or all of the rules could leads to legal implications. As a fact, the nurse practice act is a special document that has all the duties and roles that should be conducted by a nurse (Grace, 2009). However, this act does not include legal roles that should be undertaken by nurses. Therefore, the nurses have to keenly execute their duties without disobeying the law. The firs legal implication that a professional nurse could face is negligence. A nurse is obligated to serve patients and people that seek the services diligently. This is confined to the hours that a nurse should be serving patients. Therefore, all patients should be satisfied with the services that are given when they attend a facility. However, leaving patients to their own devices could lead to legal implications against a nurse. For example, leaving a patient to over bleed to death whereas a nurse could have prevented this could legal implication. This is negligence of duty, which results into death. The second legal implication could occur from wrong administration of drugs. Nurses have a structured and stipulated way of giving drugs to a patient. Therefore, overdosing a patient could lead to a legal implication. Lastly, a legal implication could occur where a nurse takes the point of acting as an advocate for a patient. Patients have their legal advocates, which includes family. Cultural Competence A professional nurse anesthetist should be well prepared to assist all the people that are in a facility, especially in connection to their culture. Cultural competence encompasses obtaining cultural information and using the knowledge in nursing to achieve satisfactory results in the nursing profession. In such a situation, a nurse should in all ways try to avoid misinterpretation and stereotyping the information with the scientific knowledge. First, a nurse should have knowledge of all the taboos in a cultural setting. Though the nurse’s work place is in a facility, it is a crucial point to know all the taboos. This will help in bonding with the patients and the people that are visiting the facility. As such, there will be no point of contention between the nurses and the people that seek services from the facility. Secondly, a competent nurse should know the traditions and way of life of the people in the area. Though a nurse is only deployed in the area to work, the nurse should have an idea of the tradition and the acceptable activities in a community. For example, going against a patient’s tradition could affect the patient’s stability as most of the traditions are strong and connected to culture. Thirdly, a competent nurse should have a linkage to different cultural affiliations (Jansen and Zwygart-Stauffacher, 2009). This assists in connecting with different people and interacting with other communities. In some instances, a nurse could gather more information about the origin of a complication from the cultural groups and the environment. This could help in generation a perfect cure. Health Care Delivery Health care delivery is a strong aspect that should be considered in the nursing profession. In fact, this is the ostensible reason as to why people seek nurses and nursing facilities. Therefore, recording supreme services by focusing on health care delivery could be plausible. First, health care delivery should focus on giving satisfactory results. This includes offering patients with uttermost care. For example, patients should be given meals at appropriate time, followed by their medication. This helps a patient develop in physique and in health. As such, they will heal at a fast pace. Similarly, nurses should offer comfort to the patients in the nursing facility (Grace, 2009). This includes giving company, ensuring they are in warm environment and giving encouraging testimonials. This enhances the esteem of patients in the facility. Secondly, bonding with the patients and giving additional care and services is effective in health care delivery. This could include visiting patients in their homes and giving extra services that enhance their health. This enhances a person’s way of life, as the patient feels important in the society. As such, the patient will strive to have better health. Thirdly, health care delivery is not perfect if it misses the follow up procedures of a person’s health. For example, encouraging patients to keep visiting a facility is a perfect way of following up on a person’s health. Such a person will be guaranteed stable health as any other complications are noted. In fact, noting complication in early stages makes it easier to treat such a person. Professional Goals The nursing profession is a profession that has a number of objectives and goals to achieve, especially in connection to nurse anesthetists. Therefore, banking on such goals makes it a profession that is among the top. The first professional goal is to give sufficiently care to stabilize the health of patients. The ostensible reason for building the nursing profession is to give sufficient care to patients (Masters, 2009). Therefore, when the patients are not receiving sufficient care, then the nursing profession is failing in its objectives. However, with satisfactory results, it is easy to note that the nursing profession is at the top in giving results. The second goal in nursing is to improve personal health in all the regions. The nursing profession is a wide spread profession that works in many regions. Therefore, it is in the best interests of all nurses to be geared towards achieving the universal goal. This universal goal is to improve the health of all the people in all the regions. Therefore, when the nursing profession is determined to achieve this, the whole population will have an upper hand. As such, it will offer savored results in the entire nursing fraternity. In conclusion, the nursing profession has to ensure all the people are accessible to nursing facility (Jansen and Zwygart-Stauffacher, 2009). This includes increasing the number of nursing facilities and increasing the number of registered nurses. This will increase the chances of improving the nursing professional and all its services to a much better realm. For example, when the facilities are increased, the number of patients in each facility will be managed. As such, nurses will have ample time to serve a patient. This leads to satisfactory results. References Grace, P. (2009). Nursing ethics and professional responsibility in advanced practice. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Jansen, M., & Zwygart-Stauffacher, M. (2009). Advanced practice nursing: core concepts for professional role development. New York: Springer Publishing Company. Masters, K. (2009). Role development in professional nursing practice. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Read More