I think that nursing is one of the most important professions nowadays. Its main task is to help people recover and return to their normal lifes. Of course, they don’t prescribe any pills and don’t do operations, but without their help the process of recovery would be absolutely impossible. That’s why they should posses certain qualities and, of course, good education.
In order to improve professional skills of nurses Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has published a list of recommendations concerning the future of nursing.
Recommendation 1: Remove scope-of-practice barriers.
Recommendation 2: Give more opportunities for nurses to cooperate.
Recommendation 3: Create nurse residency programs.
Recommendation 4: Increase the numrer of nurses with a bachelor’s degree to 80% by 2020.
Recommendation 5: Increase the quantity of nurses with a doctorate by 2020.
Recommendation 6: Make sure that all nurses have an opportunity to learn lifelong.
Recommendation 7: Give opportunities to enable nurses to make changes to improve health.
Recommendation 8: Create opportunities for collection and analysis of health care workforce data.
I think that these recommendations are very reasonable. First of all I think that each nurse needs bachelor’s degree to become a qualified worker. This level of education gives them a lot of necessary knowledge to do their work properly. They will also be ready to act in some unpredictable situations which require additional knowledge which can only be reached while getting a bachelor’s degree. I am currently working on my BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing).
Though I am not going to continue my education to get doctorate. In my opinion that it is not necessary for my profession, though I think that it is a good supplement to nurses’ education. And it increases their competitiveness in the job market.
Talking about lifelong learning, I think that it is necessary that there should be some additional post-graduate courses. They can help the nurses to keep up with the times, bring knowledge about new illnesses, technologies, trainings. As for me, I’m going to learn some new things, read different articles which concern my profession in order to improve my knowledge and skills.
I think that increasing my level of education will definitely influence my competitiveness in modern job market. It is obvious that more educated workers are more needed and have more chances to get a job. Though, I think that even high level of education cannot substitute practice. And choosing between a worker with doctorate and a worker with some years of practice, the employee will choose the one with practice because it guarantees higher level of qualification. That is why, I think, that it is better to spend your time practicing nursing skills rather than getting the doctorate.
I also think that my level of education will not influence the future of nursing. Of course, there is a tiny chance that it will, but I think that this impact will be so miserable that it will not be taken into consideration.
So, as you can see, I think that the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies are quite reasonable and they are able to improve the quality of the future nursing, though it will be quite difficult to realize all of them in the defined terms.
References:
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Institute of Medicine (IOM) (2011). The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. Retrieved 02 June 2013 from http://www.aone.org/resources/future_of_nursing.shtml
