Reasons of Why Team Working and Working Under Supervision Are Beneficial - Assignment Example

Role of a Nurse Task The Role of a Nurse For individuals who wish to work in an interesting, competitive and rewarding environment, the nursing profession has a lot to offer. In fact, nurses make up the biggest group in the NHS and are an important part of the healthcare team. Nurses work in different health care settings ranging from accidents, care centres for the elderly and hospitals with individuals across various age brackets, from different backgrounds and cultures (Denny and Earle, 2005:65). Nurses play various roles depending on their area of training and experience. To understand the role of a nurse, it is appropriate to get a definition of nursing in order to have an idea on what is expected of nurses. Nursing is the promotion, protection and optimisation of health, alleviation of suffering and prevention of injury and illness through treatment and diagnosis (Basford and Slevin, 2003:4). It also entails advocacy in the care of populations, communities, families and people. There are numerous roles of a nurse depending on the setting. Nurses perform physical examinations on patients and study their medical histories. They provide health promotion, education and counselling in the various sectors that they work in. They offer a number of personalised interventions including wound care and administering of medications. They interpret information about their patients, make important decisions and take action. They supervise care that is given by other health care practitioners (Basford and Slevin, 2003:35). They work in collaboration with other healthcare practitioners to promote health for their patients. Finally, they conduct research on ways to improve patient outcomes. Reasons of Why Team Working and Working under Supervision Are Beneficial Working in teams in the nursing sector is beneficial to both patients and staff. In addition to helping patients, teamwork promotes employee satisfaction, cooperation and retention rates. When taking into account the team nursing framework, the following benefits can be considered. To start with, team members help one another readily, if a nurse has been assigned two patients and the other is free, they will definitely step in and help out. Secondly, this model leads to an increase in employee satisfaction (Denny and Earle, 2005:45). Previous case studies have shown that the scores of employee satisfaction increased with the adoption of the model. Finally, mentoring opportunities increase as novices are paired up with novices who guide them in performing their duties. This has been observed to increase the rates of employees’ retention. On the other hand, supervision has numerous benefits in the nursing profession. To begin with, supervision leads to an improvement in the quality of nursing. Supervision acts as a platform for professional development as it helps nurses identify their areas of weakness (Denny and Earle, 2005:37). Secondly, it helps the members of staff draw a clear line between their professional and personal lives. The Main Differences between the Role of Nurse with That of Other Careers, Professional and Non-professional There are distinct differences between nursing and other careers. To start with nursing is a calling. According to numerous experiences shared by nurses over the years, it is clear that most of them were inspired to pursue it or went through and life changing experience that made them opt for nursing (Denny and Earle, 2005:23). Secondly, nurses have to go through the nursing training to learn important concepts on health care provision while those in other profession, for example, teaching and fashion design go through a different form of training. Thirdly, nursing involves the provision of personalised care unlike in some professions such as accounting or software design. Fourthly, other careers such as painting and singing are innate; however, one has to train to be a nurse. In a nutshell, nursing is different from other careers professional and non- professional in terms of training, nature of work, personalised care and pay. Different Branches of Nursing There are several branches of nursing that individuals can choose from. The four common branches include prenatal nurses, registered nurses, home health nurses and nurse practitioners. Prenatal nurses take care of women with childbirth and pregnancy issues. Home health nurses require several years of experience as a registered nurse and take care of patients in the home care setting (Basford and Slevin, 2003:7). Registered nurses provide healthcare education to individual and communities. Finally, nurse practitioners require the highest level of education and perform advanced functions. Attributes and Skills Required For Nursing and How They Vary According To the Various Settings Some of the key skills that individuals who work in the nursing profession or are hoping to working as nurses include:effective communication skills, excellent people skills, ability to work in a team and the capacity to handle emotionally charged situations. Attributes of nurses are demonstrated by the 6Cs that include commitment, courage, communication, competence, care and compassion (Basford and Slevin, 2003:15). These skills and attributes vary according to different settings. For instance, nurses that work with the elderly and children should be caring and have excellent people and communication skills. Nurses working with patients suffering from chronic illnesses should show compassion and courage. Task 2 Reasons for the Relevant NMC Legislation Governing the Way That Nurses Care for Clients/Patients The NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) is an organisation that ensures that the standards of patient care are maintained. It is mostly manage by nurses and its service is entirely to the public. Nurses and midwives are legally bound to register to ascertain whether they are fit and competent for the practice. Additionally, it ensures that the nurses and midwives have the right training and have completed the study hours that are required for their respective duties and responsibilities. The specific legislation that governs that way that nurses and midwives care for their clients states that ... “make the care of people your first concern, treating them as individuals and respecting their dignity” (Roussel, 2011:3). This legislation was put in place to improve the quality of care received by patients in various medical settings. It states that care is the most important service that nurses an offer their clients. This is by ensuring that they are aware of their medical history, make proper records concerning their illness and ensure that they have been given the right medications. Some patients or clients especially those who are admitted in hospitals require specialised care and maintenance of high hygiene standards (Funnell and Koutoukidis, 2008:45). Additionally, patients in the home care settings also require specialised care and the legislation ensures that they get high quality of care from care givers. In the past, there were instances of patients’ discrimination based on their social, religious or financial backgrounds. The legislation was put in place to ensure that all patients were treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. This means that patients can access health care in spite of their religious, social and cultural backgrounds (Funnell and Koutoukidis, 2008:45). By making patient care the first priority, this improves the overall health standards in the society. It can therefore be argued that the legislation facilitated equality in access of health care. This legislation was established to ensure that patients are treated with care and compassion. There are instances where nurses and midwives were rude to patients and the legislation rules against such treatment (Roussel, 2011:78). Nurses are urged to be courteous to patients at all times, listen to them intently and give the all the relevant information that they need to know. An important provision of the legislation is the right to confidentiality that states that nurses should not share personal information about the patient to unauthorised parties. This legislation has had a positive impact on how patients or clients are treated and has lead to a positive impact on health care. Task 3 Ethical and Moral Dilemma in Nursing First, the paper looks at the concept of ethical dilemmas within nursing. An ethical dilemma can be understood as a problem with no satisfactory solution. Ethics is concerned with doing what is good and doing no harm but this definition varies from one nurse to another. The principles of ethics in the nursing profession act as a basis on which ethical decisions are based. These are further influenced by the experiences, beliefs and values of an individual nurse. As a result, numerous choices can be made in the same ethical dilemma (Roussel, 2011:69). There are various ethical issues that nurses experience in the work place. These include truth versus deception, pro-choice versus pro-life, freedom versus control, distribution of resources and personal belief versus empirical knowledge. Concerning truth and deception, it becomes hard for nurses to choose between giving members of the family information of a negative prognosis (Benjamin and Curtis, 2010:76). In some cases they may withhold the information if they think that it will hurt them. Secondly, the decision on pro-life and pro-choice matters depends on the personal beliefs of the nurse. Thirdly, when it comes to freedom versus control, it becomes hard for patients to decide on whether patients should make decisions that may harm them or should the nurse intervene (Roussel, 2011:70). Distribution of resources is the other ethical dilemma that faces nurses especially when dealing with patients on life support. A major issue arises on whether nurses should continue spending resources on these patients at the expense of other patients. Finally, there are instances where personal beliefs that are influenced by culture and religion may go against research based knowledge and this results into an ethical dilemma. Moral dilemmas are common in nursing and they involve situations that require making of a choice between two equal choices. Nurses experience such situations in the daily operation. For example, what does a nurse do when a patient proposes something that conflicts with their morals? Some nurses will act based on the patients’ wishes while other will act according to their morals. The main issue that comes up in moral dilemmas is nurse-patient confidentiality. Nurses are required to maintain this confidentiality even if they have some information on the patient that could harm other individuals (Roussel, 2011:72). Nurses are also presented with an ethical dilemma in case where there are malpractices in the institutions they work for. They are bound to keep the operations of the hospital secret while, at the same time, they have a moral duty to report any wrongdoing. References Basford, L. & Slevin, O. (2003) Theory and practice of nursing: An integrated approach to caring practice, Nelson Thornes. Benjamin, M. & Curtis, J. (2010) Ethics in nursing: Cases, principles and reasoning, Oxford University Press. Denny, E. & Earle, S. (2005) Sociology for nurses, Polity. Funnell, R. & Koutoukidis, G. (2008) Tabbners nursing care: theory and practice, Elsevier Australia. Roussel, L. (2011) Management and leadership for nurse administrators, Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Woodhead, K. (2005) A textbook of perioperative care, Elsevier Health Sciences. Read More