The Role of a Nurse as a Health Educator - Essay Example

The Role of a Nurse as a Health Educator You’re Name University Professor Course 15 May 2006 The Role of a Nurse as a Health Educator It is widely known that a nurse’s role is extremely multi-faceted, especially within the UK where there is a definite shortage of good nurses and those who educate people on proper health care as well. In this regard nurses have begun to fill this role also, by attempting to ensure proper healthcare is maintained throughout the generalized public and in home care residents through many different instructional and hands on means (Thompson 2005). One of these however is in regards to assisting the elderly and attempting to make sure that they have proper instructions to help them in preventing adversities such as falls, or other specific ailments from occurring or worsening at an accelerated rate due to their misunderstandings of how to take better care of their own health (Thompson 2005). One example of this form of health education by nurses is in the Royal Victoria Infirmary. Some nurses work to gather the necessary funding to guarantee educational services and the necessary health care services so that there can be good interventive care for many elderly patients that otherwise would not have this type of assistance in safeguarding their health. In this program alone there are many types of interventions set up to help the elderly patients who are found to have multi-symptomatic reasons for why they are facing more adversities with their health, especially in regards to falls. Fall prevention is one of the most detrimental forms of health education. It is believed that by investigating the reasons in behind the falls, implementations can be made to reduce them and provide better health outcomes for a majority of elderly patients. This particular facility has a range of functions from admitting, to checking their symptoms for a correlation to the reasoning in behind their multiple falls (Thompson 2005). Because the statistics of dangerous falls among the elderly are extremely high with about 30% of the elderly population having a least one fall relating in a serious injury per year, the need for educational and assessment programs is essential in providing quality care and educational outreaches to prevent falls for the aging population in the UK. Health care providers, (especially nurses) have publicly stated that because many falls result in broken hips or other broken bones and thus severely impair a positive recovery for an elderly patient there has to be some form of a program instated to teach the elderly what they can do to avoid further falls in the future (Thompson 2005). This will ease the burden on carers as well as if the elderly can have a little more control in caring for their own well-being then they won’t have to be so dependent on their health care providers. This is just one of the issues that nurses have to work on to get phased into the health care regimen in the UK. As one nurse stated, “It is never too late to start reducing the risks of falls” (Thompson 2005). Of course this is just one area where nurses are becoming health educators as well as providing high quality health care to those who are in need. Furthermore, it needs to be recognized that the code of nursing is extremely important, and this fact can’t be emphasized enough. There are specific ethical codes that a nurse must go by and the ANCI is one of these very pertinent ideas that instructs and guides a nurse in her daily care plan for her patients (Johnstone 1999). The ANCI teaches the nurse, and reminds her that her main goals are to ensure and promote good health, due her best to control illness among the population, and to reduce the suffering of her patients to the best of her ability while promoting a high quality recovery through the care that she gives (Johnstone 1999). These are some of the very reasons why health care is held in such high regard in the UK because the nurses work hard to meet the obligations of their patients by following along these guidelines and ethics. Also they lean upon their educational background to further their knowledge and understanding of those from different ethnicities, cultures, nationalisms, and also to assist them in understanding and treating the various health care related illnesses that multiculturalism can bring to health care. Also, they strive to instruct individuals on how to refrain from becoming exposed to certain illnesses such as pneumonia, the flu, bronchitis, skin infections, and various other health ailments that can promote adverse health conditions. They do this by the training that they have been given themselves through the many extra health care resources that are available to nurses and those that work in the medical field (Johnstone 1999). They share their knowledge with the public, as has been said, to try and safeguard the health and well being of those in society by “initiating and supporting actions” that are meant to improve on the many health and social needs of the general public (Johnstone 1999). Although the majority of nurses do the best job that they can, many of them are up against a wall at times when it comes down to delivering the appropriate care that is needed. They can instruct, advise, health educate, attempt to gain funding, and be multi-tasked in other ways as well but they can’t guarantee that the field of health care will get the resources that it needs to help meet the goals of many nurses and other health care providers. The World Health Organization has shown that there is a global need for nurses everywhere throughout the world and the reason for this has a lot to do with the necessary resources of nursing staff not being fully met (Clark & Clark 2003). An example of some of these problems can be shown as in Africa, there is no proper way to prevent disease from being transmitted while attempting to care for those that are ill. In the country of Ireland the wages of nurses are severely disproportionate with the multi-faceted role that they have. Within the United States, nurses are nearly run in the ground due to the overtime that they are required to put in because of the existing nursing shortages. These are just some of the complex problems that nurses deal with and they are some of the underlying reasons why the shortage of nurses will continue to mount if there are not implementations put in place to fix the growing problem (Clark & Clark 2003). Therefore healthcare around the world is said to be in an ultimate crisis because there is just no way that all the healthcare needs can be met without a fully trained staff of nurses on hand. Although the nurses that are in employment now do excellent work in education, and facilitating health care, they are being driven to hard, as has been said. Furthermore, the growing medical epidemics, the adverse environment, natural disasters, and even wartime has placed a severe strain on world wide health care, especially the nurses, yet they still prove to be some of the most sufficient of healthcare providers. Even through the adversities the nurses role is still fulfilled by offering understanding to the patients, guiding and instructing them to eat better for a healthier lifestyle style, providing assessments for the elderly, and even providing educational resources to further extend on the idea of how to stay healthy for the general public in other ways as well (Clark & Clark 2003). Of course this emphasizes that nurses still strive to provide good health education even though it is outside their main role. Now it is found that nurses are working diligently to bring in more of awareness to the need for decent health care. They promote worldwide organizations and associations to explain about the standards of nursing, what it takes to get licensed, and how to join in a practice (Clark & Clark 2003). Of course, nurses are doing this so that they might have more power and say so over their working lives in hopes that they can improve upon their positions so that they can provide high quality health care to all of those who need it. In conclusion, this research has shown that nurses are very flexible in their field. They have the tools to work through multicultural issues such as where language might be a barrier to appropriate health care, as well as facilitating means to help the elderly live more productive lives with better health. Through all the many adversities many nurses promote their profession to try and bring more people into this career choice. Their ethics and moral codes are unprecedented and some of the best in the health care system. In other words, it is the nurses who care for many sick and injured people every year and without their care, guidance, and instruction the health care system would face serious complications as they are the key in reaching out to the public and their many patients they care for as well. Notes 1. Clark, Paul & Clark, Darlene, “Challenges Facing Nurses Associations and Unions: A Global Perspective.” International Labour Review, 142, 2003. 2. Johnstone, Megan-Jane, Bioethics: A Nursing Perspective (Philadelphia: Harcourt Saunders, 1999), 1. 3. Thompson, Craig, “Keep Clear of Falls in the Autumn of Your Life.” The Evening Chronicle, 25 July. 2005. Read More