Nursing Proficiency - Report Example

Nursing Proficiency Nurses are the carriers of grievances and anxieties of society. They are associated with the toughest times of life like illness,death, disability and so forth. Nurses consider ‘patients’ as illness and ‘caring’ or ‘nursing’ as the tasks to be done. They offer their life for this gracious service. Nurses are synonyms of care. Nursing is the noble most profession. Nurses should possess several qualities and abilities and are supposed to play various challenging roles. Role of a nurse will be as complex as life itself and involves various tough and painstaking tasks. Nurses provide valuable therapeutic care and treatment according to the nature of the sickness of the patient. They do diagnostic services and health assessment tests also. Their duties include clinical data management and other resource management also. Nurses do home visits and related support services to patients. Nurses coordinate patient services by networking with different services; they integrate service delivery. Nurses do patient advocacy and communicate information, advice and feedback between patients and services. Nurses properly manage the clinical environment and maintain a hygienic, infection-free surrounding. Nurses do participate in awareness giving programs, classes, community development programs, health education classes, health seminars, immunisation camps and so forth. They perform health screening, patient education, outreach services and other services. Nurses help hospitals to bring about a better human and material resource management. They build a practice base, optimize the usage of professional resources, and maximize financial efficiency also. Contributions of nurses will differ according to the type of their service and the type of organizations they serve. Nature of the services will vary according to the nature of the patients also. Nurses serving children’s hospitals will have different roles from nurses serving in normal hospitals. Nursing staff who contribute their services to old people will have entirely different tasks. Nursing staff working in mental health care institutions will have different set of responsibilities and roles. Tasks may also differ according to the departments where nurses are placed. Nurses working in operation theatres, emergency units and intensive care units will have tough and more responsible roles compared to other nurses who work in general wards. Professional nurses should be able to exhibit all the standards and practices of nursing care. They must be proficient and well experienced in all the aspects of patient care. They must be in a position to explore all the phases of various practice settings and other elements of nursing. Professional nurses must be good in decision-making so that they can effectively manage their duties at their work places. In order to properly coordinate between the fellow staff and also to perfectly accomplish their own duties, a professional nurse must display outstanding decision making qualities. Decisions are made according to the roles of each staff and according to their duty timings and expertise. These decisions should be guided by their competency level, job description and license. Professional nurses will have their jobs allocated according to the excellence and competence they exhibit, meeting the demands and requirements of patients. Work load allocation also should be according to the guidance of the seniors and according to the prevailing regulations and followings of that particular organization (hospital). Effective communication is also indispensable for a professional nurse. Good communication of the nursing staff is very mandatory for good patient management. Professional nurses should be able to effectively convey their instructions (doctor’s instructions) to patients so that patients can cooperate with them. Nurses also should be capable to bring out the demands and status of patients from their mouth (opinion of the patient) by properly communicating with them. Nurses should take the initiative for the careful and timely planning of patient’s activities by effectual interdepartmental communication and coordination. Appropriate and timely assistance to doctors and proper managing of the resources are the other important duties of professional nurses. Superior staff should ensure that subordinate nurses are offering their service to a satisfactory level, and are fulfilling their responsibilities with respect to the scope of license and other regulations and rules of the institution. Services of professional nurses should wrap up a sense of authority, responsibility and accountability. The service of a professional nurse should embrace factors like care, sincerity, responsibility, punctuality. Proper grasping of the situation and creative interventions of professional nurses has redefined the meaning of nursing care. Professional nurses should have undergone enough real situations and should exhibit marginally acceptable performance. Patricia Benner studied how a nurse can develop from a novice stage to an expert stage. Benner explained how the true experiences of a nurse (clinical knowledge, a combination of theoretical and practical knowledge) can unveil and create knowledge. The study explained different domains of nursing practice including the helping role, the teaching or training (coaching) role, patient-monitoring role, management and decision making roles, monitoring and managing therapeutic interventions, routines and treatments, and so forth. According to Benner, “...adequate description of practical knowledge is essential to development and extension of nursing theory.” A proficient nurse can comprehend the situation properly and can act accordingly to the demands and requirements of the patients. An experienced nurse will have proper knowledge about all possible events that can be expected at a particular situation. They can take prompt action or can modify the plans in order to give the best results. He/she can identify all unusualness of the situation and can foresee all effects prior to the applications. Nurses should have an excellent holistic understanding of the situation in order to offer the best patient care. An expert nurse will have a better intuitive grasp of the situation and can directly move into the needful action rather than considering other unwanted diagnoses and situations. Analytic ability is also essential for a good nurse to deal with every strange situation where they do not have previous experience. An exploration of ‘patient centered nursing care’ done by Titchen, a Social Scientist, could very well explain a nurse’s role. According to the study, the essence of patient-centered nursing will establish a relationship that would help the patient to address the patients personal experience of sickness or health. Being in that fellowship, a nurse can offer a special companionship, help and medical assistance, which can transform the patient. A nurse can assist the patient in bringing him out of his negative mentality or pessimistic attitude. Nurses can offer advices and words of solace to patients, refreshing their confidence and bringing out thoughts of hope which can heal a major portion of the sickness. A proper counsellor can rescue an addict from his addiction. A nurse (nurse cum counsellor) can help people come out of various addictions like alcoholism, smoking and drug intake. A nurse can assist him by providing an environment that will help him come out from the hold of addiction. Nurse can convince the addict about the ill effects of addictions. He/she can offer both therapeutic and advice healing services which can take out the person from the horrible pit of addiction. A nurse’s role can be better defined as a facilitating or supporting role that can assist a patient to attain a higher level of consciousness. The art and science of nursing is all about the ‘care’ that a nurse can offer to a patient. Nurses require special skills like attentiveness and observatory power to comprehend the physical as well as mental status of the patient. According to Benner, nurses should offer a care-based service to patients rather than a cure-based service. A nurse who develops a care fellowship with a patient helps him to bring out the hidden healing which is already inside him. References Benner, P., Tanner, C., & Chesla, C. (1996). Expertise in Nursing Practice, Caring and Clinical Judgment and Ethics. Berlin: Springer. Benner, P. (1984). From novice to expert: Excellence and power in clinical nursing practice. Menlo Park: Addison-Wesley. Davies, J. L., & Janosik, E. H. (1991) Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing: A Caring Approach, Tall Pine Drive Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Read More