With regard to nursing and personal qualities of a nurse, first of all it is necessary to point out that a nurse is a profession. According to the American Nurse Association, the registered and professional nurse is one who meets all the requirements for registration and is able to practice nursing due to a practical ability and her technical knowledge. Also, a professional nurse is the one with relevant education received from one of the accredited schools of nursing. (Thresyamma 12) However, being a professional, registered nurse and a good nurse is not the same. In order to be titled an outstanding nurse, it is not enough just to have a degree and certificate because personal qualities are much more important.
The first personal quality that every good nurse should possess is communication skills. Ability to communication is a foundation of every caring profession. Having outstanding communication skills is very important for nurses because they communicate not only with patients, but also with families and with other hospital staff, including doctors and other nurses. A good nurse should know, when to speak, how to speak and what exactly to say, especially to a patient in order to make him feel comfortable and safe.
Another personal quality that is also crucially important is patience. It is not always easy for a nurse to work with patients and to deal with them, especially because not all of them follow doctor’s recommendations and prescriptions. Moreover, often nurses hear the same questions again and again and have to repeat the same answers without getting annoyed and irritated. Patience is necessary not only for communication with patients but also with colleagues and families of patients, especially taking into consideration that nurses spend at hospital approximately 11 hours per day.
Compassion is another significant personality quality of a nurse. There are many different explanations of what exactly compassion means, but in simpler words it means acting in a way that you would like others to act towards you. (Chambers and Ryder 2) There are many different patients and some of them suffer a lot. The role and the task of any outstanding nurse are to be sympathetic suffering of other people and be able to provide comfort to them. I would say that it is a real talent to be able to understand the pain of another person and to relive it by being compassionate.
Furthermore, I am also sure that in order to become a professional nurse, the experience is needed and required. Moreover, it is possible to say that experience is the best tutor. Though an outstanding nurse is a person, who possesses a certain number of qualities, some of which are inborn and a part of personality, personal life experience is also an essential and one of key elements for becoming an ideal nurse. For example, in order to become more patient and compassionate, it is good for nurses to get a professional experience in working with the most difficult group of patients such as patients with mental disorders, the elderly or terminal patients, who unfortunately do not have any hope or chance for recovery.
Also, there are many cases, when people come to nursing and decide to become professional in this field after turning experiences in the life. For example, there are many outstanding nurses, who had been taking care of their own family members and then realized that helping others is their calling. In general, it is possible to say that only those people, who had been come through their own obstacles in life, had seen other people suffer and had suffered themselves, can become outstanding and professional nurses.
Works Cited
Chambers, Claire and Elaine Ryder. Compassion and Caring in Nursing. Abingdon: Radcliffe Publishing. 2009. Print.
Thresyamma. Fundamentals of Nursing. Noida: Gopsons Papers. 2003. Print
