The following paper will look at various concepts of nursing professional roles and values present in this field.
Explain the functional differences between a regulatory agency, such as a board of nursing (BRN), and a professional nursing organization (PNO) as it pertains to your professional nursing practice.
The former is a regulatory agency by the state that an individual who after meeting all the requirements like the required curriculum can apply for a nursing license. The latter is a specific body that emphases on a specific category or field of nursing. A Professional Nursing Organization can offer ongoing education packages, progressionpreciseconferences and certification in that field. The State Board of Examiners for Nursing got positions that arechosen by the director and hasprogressive degrees in nursing. BRN certifies the nurses that come from training in various schools while PNO stands for various specific fields of nursing like OR nurses, those that look after invalids among others. It certifies them and regulates their operations. In my case as a nurse, I will have to pass through the BRN first so that I can be certified and then if I want to venture into the world as a private or specialized nurse, I will have to be certified by the PNO.
Discuss two examples of how provisions from nursing code of ethics influence your practice.
Provision 1 state that as nurse, in their relationships as professionals, they should treat others with dignity, worth and observes rights of a patient. In my practice, we try to conserve the dignity of a patient by examining them in private. Also, all patients are treated equally to remove any bias whatsoever. There is the respect of all patients with no discrimination as to their diseases.
The other provision is the commitment of the nurse to their patients. A nurse is supposed to serve patients with no conflict of interests. They are supposed to separate personal and professional conflicts. In this scenario, I had, as a nurse to work late into the night without complaining about family and other obligations that were personal.
Discuss four professional traits from American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics (web link provided below) you will need to bring to an interdisciplinary team of healthcare professionals.
The nurse, in all specialized relationships, performs with empathy and respect for characteristic dignity, value and individuality of every individual, unobstructed by deliberations of social or economic status, individual attributes, or the nature of health problems. The nurse acts in a manner that is not discriminatory. They ensure equal treatment for all people regardless of their status, race, and color or nature of disease.
The nurse endorses, campaigns for, and struggles to defend the health, wellbeing, and rights of patient. The nurse acts as the guardian of the patient. The nurse acts in the best interests of the patient under him or her. This ensures proper treatment of a patient even if they are not aware of themselves.
The nurse contributes in founding, upholding and refining healthcare environments and circumstances of servicefavorable to the delivery of excellent healthcare and reliable with the values of the occupation through separate and joint action. They are the ones that know the environment they operate in. they are key in the implementing various policies in the interests of them and their patient.
The nurse cooperated with other healthiness professionals in endorsingcivic, national, and relationallabors to meet fitness needs. They are crucial in encouraging the community to practice hygienic measures that will lead to a healthier community. They also work in coming up with campaigns to make the community aware of new diseases, practices among others.
Identify a nursing theory that has influenced your professional practice.
Watson’s Human Caring Theory. It was put forward by the Theorist - Jean Watson who was born in West Virginia, US. She was Educated in University of Colorado in 1964. Did her MS, University of Colorado in 1966 and got her PhD from the same university in 1973. She was a distinguished Professor of Nursing and Chair in Caring Science in U of C Health Sciences Center.
Her approach had seven assumptions as follows;
- Caring can be efficientlyrecognized and put intopractice only interpersonally.
- Caring entails of curativefeatures that upshot in the gratification of assured human needs.
- Actual caring endorses health and discrete or family development.
- Caring rejoindersreceivethe person not only as they are now but as what they may become.
- A caring setting is one that compromisesof the growth of latent while letting the person to select the best act for him or herself at an agreed point in time.
- Caring is a lot more “healthogenic” than is healing. A science of loving is harmonized to the science of curing.
- The practice of caring is fundamental to nursing.
Explain how this theory fits your professional practice.This theory is applicable because caring is vital to nursing. Nursing does not concern itself with healing but offering care to patients (Conn 2003). It basically offers comfort to the sick. The practice of caring is fundamental to nursing. According to the theory, caring is a lot more “healthogenic” than is healing. It is more viable than healing is (Conn 2003). The theory fits in my case because a nurse working in the ER, my primary responsibility is to provide care and comfort to those hurt than trying to cure them. This comfort is paramount and appreciated over the cure that would come later.
The theory talks of providing care over cure and in the short run care is better than cure. So, in my case, this fits into my practice as a nurse. The primary concern I have is to take care of the sick without discrimination and not caring if their diseases are curable or not.
E. Discuss how the contributions of one historical nursing figure have impacted your professional nursing practice, including modern-day application.
One major figure that has impacted on how I view nursing is Florence Nightingale.
Throughout the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale and her nurses changed the hospice environment by setting up diet kitchenettes, a laundry, leisure centers, and administrative classes. She alsotaught the orderlies to brush the wards and empty wastes. Death rate fell from 42% to 2%. After the war she established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas' Hospital in London. When the nurses were skilled, they were referred to hospitals all over Britain, where they presented the notions they had cultured, and established tending training on the Nightingale archetypal. Nightingale's philosophies, printed in 'Notes on Nursing' (1860), were enormouslyimportant and her apprehensions for sanitation, martial health and hospital arrangementrecognized practices which are still in existence today. She passed on on 13 August 1910.
Today, many of her practices are being applied world over. Cleanliness and sanitation in wards is still emphasized. Clean laundries, beds, bedpans among others are kept clean and are replaced regularly. This was a legacy from Florence.
Discuss a scenario in which you, as a nurse, safeguarded two of the following principles for the patient:• Beneficence
In day to day practice like issuing injections, cleaning and changing beds show the beneficent side of me as a nurse. This enforces my practice as a nurse. By serving patients in their needs proves my worth as a nurse (Conn 2003).
• Nonmaleficence
The ethical principle of inflicting no harm, it is founded on the Hippocratic saying, primum non nocere, first do no harm. Once I encountered a very sick man, terminally ill. But instead of inflicting harm on him like mercy killing, I made him comfortable in his illness (Conn 2003).
• Respect for autonomy
Autonomy in medicine practice is not purely permitting patients to create their own conclusions. Doctors have an option to create the environments compulsory for autonomous choice in others. In my case, this scenario presents itself often when patients want some kind of drug that I have not approved and therefore I have to guide them to make a better choice.
• Justice
This is the equal service to all patients. All patients are treated equally to remove any bias whatsoever. There is the respect of all patients with no discrimination as to their diseases. Common cold patients are treated the same as AIDS patients and all access the same healthcare system
In conclusion, we see that nursing is all about care for the patient. The nurse contributes in founding, upholding and refining healthcare environments and circumstances of service favorable to the delivery of excellent healthcare and reliable with the values of the occupation through separate and joint action. They are the ones that know the environment they operate in. they are key in the implementing various policies in the interests of them and their patient (Conn 2003).
References
Conn, E. L. (2003). Beneficence: Stories about the Ball families of Muncie. Muncie, Ind: Minnetrista Cultural Foundation.
http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/CodeofEthicsforNurses/Code-of-Ethics.pdf/
Janice E. Hitchcock, Phyllis E. Schubert, Sue A. Thomas. (2003)Community Health Nursing: Caring in Action
Timko, R. M., & Hoff, J. W. (2001). Clinical ethics: Due care and the principle of nonmaleficence. Lanham [etc.: University Press of America.
