THE CHALLENGES OF NURSING
Posted by rinnik on July 7, 2008
Nursing may be viewed as both an art and a science. It is an art because it is concerned with skills that require proficiency and dexterity. It is a science because it requires the systematic application of scientific knowledge. It is involved in the delivery of health care to society. It is caring which involves close personal contact with the recipient of health care. It concerns with services that take the patient into account as a holistic being.
Nursing is committed to personalized services for all persons irrespective of color, creed, social or economic status. It is committed to promoting individual, family, community and national health goals in the best manner possible. It is also committed to ethical, legal, and political issues in the delivery of health care.
Nursing has undergone an evolutionary process to meet the changing needs of society. It exists today in a world which has many facets and division. From that of a handmaiden to a vocation, it has finally achieved a status so long deserved of a profession.
A better educated and more astute population with more and easy access to health information has resulted in a consumer more knowledgeable in health matters than in the past. As a result, the consumer today is often seen using his legal and political power to demand more and better quality care. He has come to consider health care to be his right rather than the privilege of a few. Nurses of the world have risen to this occasion and have taken up the challenge. Continuing nursing education and schools and colleges of nursing have cropped up all over the world to train and prepare more and better professional nurses to meet this change.
Today, the nurses have steadily assumed a number of roles in a variety of health care settings.
Primarily, she does her traditional role that of a caregiver. Traditional as it is, today’s nurse is equipped with the knowledge and technical expertise to carry out her various nursing responsibilities for providing the necessary physical care to her patient and to recognize nursing problems that alert her to initiate and modify care according to each patient’s unique needs.
The nurse is a role model and a teacher. This reflects the importance of her nursing responsibilities to include helping people stay well as well as assisting them in recognizing the best health status.
In identifying and analyzing the moods and feelings of her patients, the nurse does a bit of counseling , opening up communication lines where she helps those she serves to become aware of their feelings and deals with them in a constructive manner.
We also see nurses today act as coordinators to ensure that in the dispensation of health services; the care of the patients does not suffer and will continue to receive the same degree of quality health care.
Similarly, the nurse is a leader in her own right. She is not only a care provider but actively involves herself in various nursing activities and makes her presence felt and opinions heard. She is one who does not hesitate to address the burning issues affecting her profession.
Likewise, when she explains, interprets and defends her patient’s rights and defends life as a whole, she is fulfilling her advocacy role.
The nurse is a manager. She is an administrator for no service can deliver the goods effectively without someone managing from the top. So does the nursing service. She shapes policy. The delivery of effective and quality health care to the patients can be possible only when the nursing services are well-organized, coordinated and dispensed to meet the patient’s particular needs for nursing care.
There are nurses engaged in research and no doubt their findings will be far-reaching. This aspect of nursing- the capability of examining itself must neither be ignored nor underestimated. It is a signal to anyone who is unaware that nursing today is a thoroughly a professional field.
The standards of nursing have greatly improved with time. It continues to improve with time. It continues to improve in its approach. As a profession, it continues to grow in demand, expands its services and commands the respect and admiration of society.
Nursing will continue to rise and will be looked upon with high honors amongst the many noble professions for as long as it remains dedicated in its commitment to the health care of all human beings. Nurses throughout the world have pledged themselves to this task.
Nursing is here to stay. Hopefully, the perception of nurses as mere handmaidens to the medical profession will finally and completely be erased from the minds of all humanity. Hopefully, nurses of today shall be given the status of partners of the medical profession. The realization of this very fact shall indeed be the greatest gift that nurses can ever have.
It remains a challenge.
