The Primary Holism in Nursing - Thesis Proposal Example

Thesis: The nurse advocate profession is an excellent choice in the nursing field. Patients have a lot demands and except them to be successfully understand by the presence of those nurses. Therefore, nurses patient advocate have to use their qualified education, knowledge, and experience to work with patients. Introduction Nursing mediates with physician social workers, dietitians and family members in order to ensue that all patients need are met. Recognizing the significance of evidence base within modern nursing, all which have something to tell nurses about their relationships with patients, informal caregivers or health professionals, or about their role in the workplace, helps in understanding the multidisciplinary approach in healthcare organizations wherein health professionals work as a team in order to aid patients and have holistic treatment covering all of the aspects of an individual’s health and well-being. Body The principal reasons that push a nurse to choose to become a patient advocate are: • Great Caring Nature Nurses are involved in caring for people who are ill or dying, as well as in promoting health or well-being. Whichever is the case, understanding what being ‘healthy’ is important – although it is a challenging task to say the least. Nurses consider the range of ways that health has been defined, looking at ‘official’ definitions of health, as well as distinction between professional and lay definitions. Models of health are explored and contrasted the biomedical model, which has been influential within medicine and health care, with the social model, which focuses on the social causes of disease. Nurses consider the social construction of health and illness, examining how normal healthy processes become medicalized, and discuss the iatrogenic effects of medicalization on individuals and on society. • Bilingual Capabilities It is not necessary to hire diverse nurses when the patient population is also diverse. Even though nurses are of similar culture, they still have a common goal which is providing the best patient care. Diversity has a depth and dimension that surpasses the obvious differences among people. Nurses honor the obvious differences among people. They honor diversity within their own countries, recognizing the unique characteristics and individual contributions of each of their citizens to their state’s success and development. They believe that a diverse group of people fosters an environment conducive to creativity, productivity and high performance that affords each individual the opportunity to reach their fullest potential. Proper facilitation and administration provides leverage to the diversity of healthcare organizations as a competitive advantage in the global aspect that they face and to make the country a better place to live and prosper for immigrants such as the Irish. Healthcare organizations want to promote the development of growth and diversity by strengthening our existing relationships and building new collaborative relationships between the existing immigrant workforce and the diverse community that they serve. Nursing responsibilities in this role • Provide Best Care Nurses provide care for people through performing the responsibilities related to their profession as well as by providing utmost concern and compassion to patients that they ensure that they give the best quality of service the patients deserve. It is the original service enabling patients to utilize the health care system with more autonomy, confidence, and success.  Historically, clinical RNs have been the best patient advocates, but have little time or opportunity to do so today.  By working for the patient/family rather than the institution, RNPAs entire focus and responsibility is solely with the patient. • Doing it for good reason not for money Health care and the cost of medical services are among people’s most important concerns. Both state and federal governments have been trying to ensure that all citizens have some form of health insurance and can receive health care when needed, but many millions of people still do not have access to health care services or cannot afford health insurance. Modern conventional medicine has become highly technical and expensive. The consumer health care services needs to be able to evaluate the risks and benefits of diagnostic tests, treatments, recommended drugs, or surgery if he or she is to maintain control of decisions that affect health. Understanding people’s rights as patients and knowing how to communicate with them to know their concerns and needs to health professionals like nurses and doctors will help them stay healthy and help in the healing process when they become sick. Impact of the selected role in the nursing profession • Saving lives Nurses may take a persons vital signs several times a day. Vital signs include taking and recording a patients temperature, blood pressure, respirations, pulse, and pain level. Other things recorded in vital signs may be weight (especially for renal patients), bowel movements, and blood pressure measurements which are taking in different positions (in heart patients, for example, it is common to do a lying then standing measurement to assess the cardiovascular systems ability to compensate). Nurses as patient advocates Guide patients or their loved one through the maze of todays segmented healthcare system. “Moving from one provider/system to another or incorporating several into your best health care plan can be a daunting task. Aside from this, Nurses can be at patients’ bedside following surgery or during the acute phase of an illness to do continual physical assessments and ensure that the proper medications and treatments are given in a timely, safe manner.” (Patterson, 1997) While at the bedside, nurses will also perform those necessary physical tasks that the staff may have difficulty performing punctually. This may include post-operative deep breathing exercises, turning in bed, walking to the bathroom, etc. • Teaching/Prevention Good health is a major resource for social, economic and personal development and an important dimension of quality of life. Political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioural and biological factors can all favour health or be harmful to it. Health promotion action aims at making these conditions favourable through advocacy for health. Neuman Systems Model (NMS) The Neuman System Models is one of the models based on an individual’s relationship because this model has much to do with the nursing profession. However, although nursing is still predominantly situated within a biomedical model of health, it is widely acknowledged that contemporary nursing is also influenced by the notion of holistic care. In very general terms, holistic care has been equated with the biopsychosocial model, or as Wynne et al. (1997, p.471) have argued, a holistic approach is underpinned by an ‘acceptance that health is determined and defined by inter-related social, psychological, and biological factors’. Other commentators have defined holism in nursing as an understanding that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’; this is known as the whole-person holism (Kolcaba,1997). Other definitions of holism also exist; for example Patterson argues that holism ‘implies mind, body and spirit’ (1998, p.289). Whilst the provision of nursing care within a holistic framework provides an idealistic picture of the role of the nurse, it must be acknowledged that nursing work is ‘both messy and contingent’ (Williams et al,. 1998, p.122) Some sociologists argue that for the vast majority of nursing work, it is the pathological and dysfunctional body that remains the primary focus. Some suggests that holistic care is a way of defining what nursing is and what nurses do, adding emotional and intellectual value to nursing work. Indeed, Williams (1998) claims that knowing the patient is fundamental and marks expertise in nursing. a. - Physiological This refers of the physicochemical structure and function of the body. Disability and illness are very challenging and patients may not easily take these positively. Patients who are disabled and ill feel very dependent and unproductive since their capacity to work has been damaged or removed. Nurses, being patient advocates, helps these patients cope with their disabilities through giving them the proper medication and procedures as prescribed and instructed by physicians or doctors. They are able to consider the biological or physical aspect of illness or disability. b. - Psychological This refers to mental processes and emotions. Adaptation and management of illness and disability can be considered as one of the nurses’ role as patient advocates. This describes how individuals cope with impairment, how they develop a strategy and a style to achieve the best quality of life possible. It is a way individuals achieve a ‘normal’ life, despite the presence of impairment. The term coping implies a moral framework against which an individual’s ability to cope is judged. Coping can be seen as a means of determining ways in which individuals recover or maintain a sense of self-worth. It is about the emotional and cognitive mechanisms that people with impairment employ in adaptation to their new life situation; it involves a sense of value and meaning in life, in spite of symptoms and their effects. c. - Developmental This refers to those processes related to development over the lifespan. Changes in a patient’s life during and after illness of disability should show progress or development. Nurses help these patients to improve their health status. d. - Socio-cultural This refers to relationships; and social/cultural expectations and activities. Recent nursing research has advocated the perspective that appropriate provision of services can only occur when the cultural diversity of patients, the interaction of patient culture with the culture of the provider, and the professional orientation of the western medical model are taken into consideration. Cultural awareness for the delivery of all quality patient care by nurses, but it has particular significance for the mental health field because of the nature of the practicesThe definition of normality is undoubtedly value laden; the issue of culture must be addressed, not only in the treatment process, but in evaluation and diagnosis as well. Embedded in one’s culture are beliefs and attitudes regarding spirituality, family structure, gender roles, and health care, all of which affect relationships, the choice of activity, and the preferred environment. In addition, cultural values vary tremendously and must be taken into account when planning any aspect of intervention. d. - Spiritual This refers to the influence of spiritual beliefs. By strengthening the faith of patients, nurses can tech these patients the values of seeking divine intervention to help them in coping with their current health status. IV Conclusion The Neuman Systems Model is a conceptual framework, a visual representation, for thinking about humans and nurses and their interactions. The model views the person as a layered, multidimensional whole that is in constant dynamic interaction with the environment. The layers represent various levels of defense protecting the core being. The two major components in the model are stress reactions and systemic feedback loops. Client reacts to stress with lines of defense and resistance (Neuman, 1995). The main use of the Neuman Model in practice and in research is that its concentric layers allow for a simple classification of how severe a problem is. “For example, since the line of normal defense represents dynamic balance, it represents homeostasis, and thus a lack of stress.” (Wynne, 1997) If a stress response is perceived by the patient or assessed by the nurse, then there has been an invasion of the normal line of defense and a major contraction of the flexible line of defense. Infection or other invasion of the lines of resistance indicates failure of both lines of defense. Thus, the level of insult can be quantified allowing for graduated interventions. Furthermore each person variable can be operationalized and the relationship to the normal line of defense or stress response can be analyzed. The drawback of this is that there is no way to know whether our operationalization of the person variables is a good representation of the underlying theoretical structures. Over the past 15 years the profit-based managed health care system has completely altered the reimbursement mechanisms of health care which in turn has led to the creation of new and complex systems of care that are often confusing to both patients and families. Medical errors have become commonplace.  “Doctors and nurses have not suddenly become substandard but rather are caught in faulty systems that lead them to make mistakes or to fail in preventing them.  The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations has recommended all patients entering a hospital have a patient advocate with them.” (Kolkaba, 1997) V References Kolkaba, R. (1997). The Primary Holism in Nursing Journal of Advanced Nursing, 25, 290-6 Neuman, B. (1995). The Neuman Systems Model (3rd edition). Norwalk, CT: Appleton & Lange. Patterson, E. F. (1998). The Philosophy and physics of holistic health care: Spiritual hearing as a workable interpretation. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 27, 287-93 Williams, A., Cooke, H. and May, C. (1998). Sociology in Nursing and Health. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann Wynne, N., Brand, S. and Smith, R. (1997). Incomplete holism in preregistration nurse education: the position of the biological sciences. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26, 470-4 Read More