During my past few years as a nursing student and as a trainee nurse at this institute, I have come across different situations and experiences that have molded my thought process, my goals, and my whole personality. I have chosen the question: What do you feel you can contribute to the patient, for this assignment. Though I have chosen the nursing career with my own goals in mind, clinical experience has made me realize the extent to which patients are reliant on the nurse. I can confidently state that it would be impossible for hospitals to function without nurses. Nurses at the clinics, practice in different spheres of healthcare: patient care, nursing and specialty services (Hudspeth, 2009). In these different spheres of healthcare; nurses can contribute to patients in many ways. I have come across situations where nurse’s role is important in improving patient satisfaction. Nurses are the front desk executives and are more likely to come in direct contact with the patient, than other health care staffs. They have more opportunity to interact and understand patient needs.
Studies have found a positive association between patient satisfaction and nurse’s skill, nurse staffing levels, nurse’s work environment and collaboration of nurse with the physician (Kutney-Lee et al., 2009). From my clinical experience, I understand that workload of the nurse can influence the time spent for interaction with the patient. When I had a lot of work to execute, I am in a hurry to complete the task and have less time to comfort the anxious patient. As a nurse, I can provide patient with answers to their fear and anxiety, and encourage them towards a positive path that will lead to healing. As a nurse, I can also help reduce or prevent medical complications in hospitalized patient. It is important to adhere to standardized care protocol and practice evidence-based medicine to reduce complications. A simple example that I would cite from my clinical experience is the hand washing protocol and use of gloves. Though this seems to be a casual practice, adherence to such practice is very important to prevent hospital acquired infection for both patients and nurses. Similarly, through evidence-based practice and adhering to standard practicing protocol, one can also reduce infection and other post-surgical complications in ICUs (Newhouse, Johantgen, Pronovist, & Johnson, 2010). My past experience has thought me the importance of skill and knowledge, in preventing complications. By following a routine, I could easily take care of the patient without introducing new complications.
Nurses can also help to reduce the patient length of stay in the hospital. Thus, saving the patient from the extra healthcare expenditure and enable a quicker recovery. Preventing complications are key to preventing the length of patient’s hospital stay. Through proactive planning of the care process and discharge plans, nurses can help the faster recovery of patients. Being at the forefront of care, it is easy for a nurse to identify bottleneck and reasons for the delay. They can also streamline the process efficiently to ensure a smooth transition across different care settings. It is important for nurses to document the improvement noticed in the patient on a timely basis so that the attending physicians can incorporate changes in treatment accordingly. Through regular monitoring, nurses can identify complications at the earliest ("Length of Stay-Reducing Length of Stay", 2016). This will help deliver timely care and faster discharge.
As a nurse, I can also contribute to the patient pain management process. Pain management has been an integral part of nursing care. In addition to analgesics, the nurse teaches strategies that can help the patient to handle the pain. A holistic approach that involves the mind and body of the patient is sometimes required to reduce pain. I remember this patient, who was having recurrent gastritis and had to endure a lot of pain. It was necessary that I assess his pain correctly and make an appropriate recommendation. Pain management involves consultation with the therapists from other discipline and also follow -up on the patient’s conditions. My clinical experience has thought me that pain management can become better only with patient autonomy and this idea is also identified by research (White, 2016). So I respect patient’s decision on how he or she wants his pain to be managed. Sometimes it is important to trust the patient. I remember an instance in which a 28-year adult male, had to take an injection. He was totally nervous and uncooperative. At first, I thought he was overreacting and creating a commotion. Later, I understood that the idea of taking an injection was truly traumatizing him. It would be inappropriate on my part to force a patient to have an injection. I had to convince him and use a local analgesic for this patient. The clinical experience has thought me to respect patient autonomy in pain management.
During the period of my nursing education and training, I had the opportunity to look after the sick and injured, under the supervision of senior nurses, who were role models to me in patient care. Patient’s respect competent nurses. Keeping a professional attitude will not only earn us the good will of the patient but will also enhance the demand for nurses in the clinical setting. Nursing experience and qualification provides the skill needed to contribute to patient’s welfare (Shotton, 2000). Very often, the efforts of the nurse are underappreciated and this may leave them discouraged. But the personal satisfaction of helping someone in their time of need is irreplaceable for me. The nursing profession gives me the opportunity to be part of many enriching moments. As the number of aged and chronic diseases are increasing in the population, the contribution of nurses will likely increase in the future. Nurses will be an advocate of geriatric patient needs and will also contribute to effective management of chronic diseases. Chronic diseases require integrated care and nurses will play an important role in coordinating this process.
References
Hudspeth, R. (2009). Understanding Discipline of Nurse Practitioners by Boards of Nursing. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 5(5), 365-371. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2009.01.001
Kutney-Lee, A., McHugh, M., Sloane, D., Cimiotti, J., Flynn, L., Neff, D., & Aiken, L. (2009). Nursing: A Key To Patient Satisfaction. Health Affairs, 28(4), w669-w677. http://dx.doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.28.4.w669
Length of Stay-Reducing Length of Stay. (2016). News Medical. Retrieved 17 August 2016, from https://www.institute.nhs.uk/quality_and_service_improvement_tools/quality_and_service_improvement_tools/length_of_stay.html
Newhouse, R., Johantgen, M., Pronovist, P., & Johnson, E. (2010). Perioperative Nurses and Patient Outcomes. JONA: The Journal Of Nursing Administration, 40(Supplement), S54-S67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/nna.0b013e3181f3804f
Shotton, L. (2000). Can Nurses Contribute to Better End-of-Life Care?. Nursing Ethics, 7(2), 134-140. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096973300000700206
White, B. (2016). Healthcare ethics and pain management. Xiangya Med., 1, 16-16. http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/xym.2016.06.15
