Factors that influenced the development of the nursing profession

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NURSING TODAY

Nursing in the 21st century has evolved greatly. Educators and practitioners have made considerable steps and taken some very effective actions that have resulted in progressive outcomes to the profession. This paper focus on some of these pertinent issues and aspects touching on the nursing profession with the aim of exploring how they have affected the practice of nursing in today’s world. The paper looks at how nursing has developed from the past, until today in the modern world. The paper will also look at the expected roles and responsibilities of nurses, and subsequent career opportunities for nursing students and practitioners in the contemporary world.

Factors that influenced the development of the nursing profession

Nursing, as a profession, has always been present in the world since the mediaeval ages. Nursing refers to the process of looking after another individual or nurturing them. DeWitt (2009) describes the profession of nursing as having borrowed heavily from the realm of religion. This is evidenced historically in images and paintings from the era of the beginning of Christianity and Islam. These religions advocated for adequate treatment and care of the sick and poor in society.

Modern nursing is however much more advanced. DeWitt (2009) adds that it is carried out by individuals who have undergone formal training and education in the science of nursing. In the much more recent past as far as the 19th century, historians document the first case of a somewhat formal education and training in nursing. The case was documented in Europe and the nurse responsible for laying these foundations of formal training in nursing was Florence Nightingale, from England. She wrote a collection of books going by the title “Notes on Nursing”.

DeWitt (2009) continues and adds that in the early 20th century, Nursing became a regulated profession and New Zealand was the first country to come up with a regulatory “Nurses Registration Act.” The regulation of nursing as a profession was taken a step further within the early 20th Century when nursing schools were taken over by hospitals. However, this changed due to the argument that hospitals did not qualify as institutions of higher learning.

There are two different types of nurses: practical nurses and registered nurses. The two undergo different training and acquire different licenses and qualifications at the end. In today’s world, the study of nursing has advanced to levels as high as Master’s and Doctorate levels within institutions of higher learning (DeWitt 2009). Nursing has developed in the modern world and it is now a very respectable profession unlike in the past when it was considered a woman’s job. In the previous centuries, medical physicians considered women as a form of free or inexpensive workforce and they were often exploited by physicians who considered themselves superior to nurses.

Roles and responsibilities of nurses

In the medical field, nurses make up the largest number of practitioners according to Anderson, Hilaire and Flinter (2012). This fact is true in most of the countries all over the world. Therefore, this makes nurses very instrumental in the medical field when it comes to patient care. Nurses are not only confined to working in hospitals. They can be found in schools, at the work place, at community centers and even in homeless shelters. Their roles and duties are also very wide depending on the place and situation.

Anderson, Hilaire and Flinter (2012) state that Nurses have two main types of roles: independent and dependent roles. Independent roles are those where the nurse does not necessarily have to rely on directions from a doctor while dependent roles are those that are assigned by doctors. Most of these roles and duties are either physical or psychosocial according to Anderson, Hilaire and Flinter (2012). Examples of dependent roles include; administering medicine to patients admitted in the hospital or even changing the dressings on a patient’s wound. Independent roles include providing care such as bathing patients or giving assistance while feeding a patient.

However, Anderson, Hilaire and Flinter (2012) state some of the main roles and responsibilities of nurses include: making an assessment of the health as well as the social needs of individuals who they are caring for; acting as links between the different wide varieties of healthcare providers in relation to patient needs; being model figures in management of healthcare; further investigating their roles on how best to improve patient’s experience; providing patients with necessary information that will assist them to further manage and improve their healthcare conditions while they recover on their own; ensuring that they maintain and operate within the proper ethical boundaries of their profession; and act as teachers to other medical practitioner who are still undergoing training.

Advancement in nursing studies has provided avenues for nurses to take on more specialized roles in different medical fields. Anderson, Hilaire and Flinter (2012) point out that this is due to the move taken by academics making nursing a degree program, rather than a technical diploma program. These specialized fields in contemporary nursing include; medical and surgical nursing, midwifery, psychiatric care and public/community health nursing. Each of these fields provides nurses with the opportunity to specialize within these categories.

Career Opportunities for nurses

As stated earlier in the paper, progress in the field of nursing has taken nursing to new levels in the contemporary world. As a result, the nursing profession is increasingly appreciated all around the world. Persons going to study as nurses are now found in a number of different industries where they work in different capacities as nurses. Nurses no longer have to work only as primary care givers to infirmed patients in hospitals anymore. Formally trained nurses in the contemporary world have quite a number of career paths they can follow after successful training.

According to Santiago (2013), career opportunities for nurses depend on the level of certification achieved. The different levels of academic training and qualification are a determinant in the career path that a nurse may take. One of the career options a nurse may take is working with a specific section of the population. For example a nurse may decide to focus on providing health care for the elderly persons in society. This is the field of nursing referred to as geriatrics. Another population based career option is pediatrics, which is nursing involving the care of young children.

Other nursing careers according to Santiago (2013), are focused on a specific medical discipline. Nurses getting into these specialized medical fields usually focus one particular area, for example, surgical nurses who specialize in providing assistance to surgeons inside the operating room and caring for patients who have undergone surgery. Another example of a nursing career by medical specialty is an orthopedics nurse, specialized in dealing with bones, joints, ligaments and muscles or an oncology nurse who specializes in proving care to patient suffering from cancer. Medical specialty nurses focus on providing healthcare to patients afflicted with particular ailments in a specific realm of medicine.

Lastly, nurses can go into careers based on a particular medical department, facility or location. For example, some nurses may chooses to be a flight nurse, providing care to persons in flight or another example is a hospice nurse, working with terminally ill patients. Nursing careers based on medical facilities or departments includes nurse providing care to patients in the Intensive Care Unit or nurses working in the Emergency Room of a hospital.

Conclusion

I want to work as a nurse because I find the nature of working as a nurse much more fulfilling. I not only enjoy providing care to patients in different stages of disease. Helping them understand and manage themselves with the aim avoiding the same conditions next time is the reason why I want to get into the field of community nursing. I find this particularly fulfilling because it will provide me with an avenue to give back to the community and at the same time interact with a wide number of medical practitioners in the field. This kind of exposure I believe will help me in deciding a much more specific nursing aspect to major in for my further studies.

References

Anderson, D., Hilaire, D. & Flinter, M. (2012) Primary Care Nursing Role and Care Coordination: An Observational Study of Nursing Work in a Community Health Center http://nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/TableofContents/Vol-17-2012/No2-May-2012/Primary-Care-Nursing-Role-and-Care Coordination.html

Egenes, J. K. History of Nursing. Jones and Bartlett

http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763752258/52258_ch01_roux.pdf

DeWit, Susan (2009). Fundamental Concepts And Skills for Nursing. Missouri: Saunders Elsevier. http://books.google.co.ke/books/about/Fundamental_Concepts_and_Skills_for_Nurs.html?id=5yRfPgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Rodgers, B. L., & Knafl, K. A. (2000). Concept development in nursing. In Margareta Asp and Ingegerd Fagerberg (2005) Developing Concepts in Caring Science Based on a Lifeworld Perspective

http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/IJQM/article/download/4447/3550