nursing practice issues essay

Professionalism in Nursing Practice Essay

Introduction, professional ethics, contact with the patient.

Each profession imposes certain requirements on a person, but only the work of a nurse imposes such high and specific duties on a specialist, who assumes high responsibility for the care provided to patients. People entrust the most precious things to medical workers – health and life, and therefore expect complete dedication from them. The most critical components of a people’s psychological activity are their qualities. Their development and integration in the process of professional formation lead to the formation of a system of professionally essential qualities.

A nurse should be constantly ready to provide competent assistance to patients regardless of their age or gender, the nature of the disease, race, or nationality, religious or political beliefs, social or financial status, or other differences. When providing care, the nurse must respect the patient’s right to participate in the planning and conduct of treatment (Azemian et al., 2021). Manifestations of arrogance, neglect, or humiliating patient treatment are unacceptable. A nurse does not have the right to impose her moral, religious, or political beliefs on a patient (Kim et al., 2018). When setting the order of medical care for several patients, a nurse should be guided only by medical criteria, excluding discrimination.

Having information about the peculiarities of the patient’s personality, character, and experiences, the nurse can tactfully explain to the patients their rights and duties, prepare them for upcoming examinations and therapeutic procedures, and talk about them in an accessible form. The unwillingness of the patients to undergo certain types of examinations or medical procedures should not cause a negative attitude toward them on the part of the nurse (Azemian et al., 2021). Nurses are required to be honest and truthful in communicating with patients. However, any conversations concerning the diagnosis or features of their disease should not go beyond the limits indicated by health professionals (Kim et al., 2018). The same rule should be observed during conversations with the patient’s relatives.

The views of other staff and nurses regarding some aspects of patient care may sometimes differ somewhat. There should be no fundamental disagreements, but it is necessary to discuss the problem with colleagues since achieving complete agreement tactfully facilitates the work. Discussing such disputable situations with third parties or directly with the authorities is unnecessary since this may provoke an unhealthy situation within the labor collective (Azemian et al., 2021). Undoubtedly, nurses have every right to defend their point of view, but at the same time, they should be ready to admit and correct their own mistakes (Kim et al., 2018). High self-demand is one of the essential qualities of any professional, and a nurse is no exception.

The main qualities that a good nurse should possess are knowledge, skill, tenderness, tenderness, compassion, mercy, boundless patience, responsibility, and politeness. Unfortunately, due attention is currently not paid to the definition and promotion of these essential qualities. Huge loads on the nurses during the performance of their professional duties only sometimes allow them to show the necessary qualities to the proper extent. Ideally, the work organization in a medical institution should be such that knowledge, skills, competence, and professional growth are expected and rewarded accordingly. Any person who has decided to devote his life to medicine should understand that no circumstances would justify any unethical act.

Azemian, A., Ebadi, A., & Afshar, L. (2021). Redefining the concept of professionalism in nursing: an integrative review . Frontiers of Nursing , 8 (4), 327–340. Web.

Kim, Y. H., Jung, Y. S., Min, J., Song, E. Y., Ok, J. H., Lim, C., Kim, K., & Kim, J. S. (2018). Development and validation of a nursing professionalism evaluation model in a career ladder system . PLOS ONE , 12 (10), e0186310. Web.

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Topic 10 Reflective Journal Critical nursing practice issues-Nursing Essay Samples

Critical nursing practice issues

I learned about critical nursing practice issues throughout this professional capstone and practicum course. I covered new practice approaches, health disparities, the role of technology in improving health outcomes, interprofessional collaboration, and ethical considerations in healthcare based on my clinical practice experiences. Working with my preceptor, I gained immense knowledge and skills in healthcare leadership and how it affects the quality of care and health outcomes. I also learned about the competencies required to achieve desired care outcomes and how my weaknesses and strengths affect my professional practice.

New Practice Approaches

The healthcare profession has undergone immense changes that call for nurses and other healthcare professionals to adapt to the changes while remaining up-to-date to provide the best available practices in patient care. Thus, new practice approaches are vital in implementing changes and solutions to current and future healthcare problems. Implementing and sustaining evidence-based practice is instrumental in offering fact-based health services to improve care quality and patient safety (Jolley, 2020) (Critical nursing practice issues).

One of the significant strengths that I learned is my ability to translate research into clinical practice. Thus, I can make care plans and intervention strategies based on research outcomes or clinical experience. One of the weaknesses noted was a lack of experience in applying new practice approaches. However, my preceptor offered guidance while implementing my evidenced-based project. I learned that leaders play a vital role in implementing new practices by providing support by offering required resources while mobilizing and motivating other staff to embrace new practices designed to improve nursing practice (Critical nursing practice issues).

Role of Technology in Improving Health Outcomes

I learned that technology has greatly improved healthcare delivery, thus improving care quality and patient outcomes. My preceptor and I discussed the importance of health information technology in healthcare. Healthcare information technology systems such as EHRs have improved health data storage and retrieval, thus improving care efficiency (Sharma et al., 2022). Healthcare providers can safely share and retrieve health information for speedy decision-making. Secondly, technology has improved medication safety since nurses can effectively administer prescribed drugs to the right patients in the correct dosage.

One of my major strengths is that I am well-versed in learning and using modern technologies that improve care delivery. However, my over-dependency on using available technologies decreased my critical thinking skills. Nonetheless, I learned to integrate technology and critical thinking skills to deliver services. Of importance, I learned that leaders have a responsibility to promote staff training on the use of technology to improve patient outcomes( Critical nursing practice issues).

Interprofessional Collaboration

I learned that interprofessional collaboration aids in improving healthcare outcomes. In this case, healthcare professionals collaborate to achieve common goals while solving complex healthcare problems (Jones et al., 2021). Each healthcare professional uses their skills and competencies to address patient problems. One of my major strengths is that I possess strong communication skills.

Through effective communication, I can effectively convey care plans, goals, and patients’ needs to my colleagues, thus improving efficiency. However, one of the weaknesses noted with interprofessional collaboration remains delayed care delivery. More so, that emanates from healthcare professionals’ disagreement about care plans for specific patients. In this case, leaders are mandated to foster effective communication and collaboration among all healthcare professionals to improve healthcare delivery.

Ethical Considerations in Healthcare

Nurses and other healthcare professionals encounter immense ethical issues while providing care. Ethical issues may arise from seeking consent while performing care procedures. Moreover, including the patient in devising care plans and protecting patients from harm. I learned that nurses should comprehend ethical issues and seek expert guidance when faced with ethical dilemmas (Critical nursing practice issues).

Although I did not encounter ethical issues, one of my major strengths is that I am always dedicated to providing care based on the above-mentioned ethical guidelines. One weakness I noted is that ethical concerns may delay treatment since healthcare providers have to seek further guidance from experts when faced with ethical issues that exceed their competency. However, healthcare leaders offer required guidance to ensure their staff are aware and follow recommended guidelines when faced with ethical issues.

Health Disparities and Population with Health Concerns

I learned that nurses and other healthcare professionals are mandated to advance the health equity agenda by ensuring diverse patients access healthcare services. I learned that minority people and those from poor backgrounds were highly affected by healthcare access problems. Poverty limits access to quality and affordable care, leading to adverse health outcomes and ill-health communities. Secondly, populations with health concerns, such as elderly persons, may also face health disparities due to the inability to reach healthcare facilities to seek healthcare services.

One of the significant strengths I noted was my ability to educate my patients on health coverage to ensure they can afford quality care. However, the lack of adequate policies covering minority and poor communities is a weakness in promoting care access. Therefore, healthcare leaders are mandated to influence healthcare policies that promote coverage of populations with health concerns and those who experience health disparities.

Jolley, J. (2020). Evidence-based practice.  Introducing Research and Evidence-Based Practice for Nursing and Healthcare Professionals , 63-88.  https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429329456-4

Jones, L., Fowler, D., Bialocerkowski, A., & Sheeran, N. (2021). Learning how to work in an interprofessional environment: How students transition to allied health professionals working interprofessional. Journal of Interprofessional Care ,  36 (3), 419-427.  https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2021.1950130

Sharma, H. K., Kumar, A., Pant, S., & Ram, M. (2022). Electronic healthcare record (EHR) storage using blockchain for smart healthcare.  Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and IoT for Smart Healthcare , 77-84.  https://doi.org/10.1201/9781003333050-8 3

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6 Persistent Nursing Issues and Challenges We Still Can’t Solve

Nursing has come a very, very long way in the past century. However, some of the challenges highlighted by nurse leaders in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, still face the profession a century later even though their exact nature might be somewhat different. Throughout the history of nursing, most of the challenges can be linked to the gender and class barriers faced by women in society and the ever-present economic demands of the healthcare industry.

1. Shortage of nurses

The shortage of nurses is a global issue discussed on an almost daily basis in reports from across the world, but this is not a new problem. Throughout the past century the recruitment and retention of nurses have not kept up with the ever-increasing demands placed on health care ; the growing need for specialized services; as well as population growth, including the aging population leading to more patients with chronic diseases. Added to these factors have been the persistent economic challenges in the healthcare industry and the growing number of other career opportunities for women.

“…the shortage of nurses appears to have been a problem from the time when the value of trained nurses in hospitals and the community was recognized.”

Taking a walk through the history of nursing , the shortage of nurses appears to have been a problem from the time when the value of trained nurses in hospitals and the community was recognized. From the mid-1800’s, when scientific developments in Western medicine increasingly led to successful treatment, hospitals changed from places where the sick and destitute were cared for to institutions where the ill were admitted for treatment.

The time was ripe when Florence Nightingale introduced formal training of nurses , and since then, it appears that the demand for qualified nurses increased exponentially. Hospital training schools for nurses mushroomed and students were used as the main workforce. Apprenticeship–type training programs of varying length and quality developed, with actual teaching often taking place in the students’ off duty time, just before examinations, or not at all. The need for students to fill staffing gaps is why hospital and nursing administrators put up strong resistance against nursing education being placed within systems of higher education.

2. Inadequate conditions of service for nurses

Recruitment and retention in the nursing profession have always been linked to nurses’ working conditions – long hours, heavy workloads, low salaries compared to other professions and a lack of recognition of their essential contribution. While fair hours of work have been standardized to a large extent, nurses are increasingly called on to work mandatory overtime due to staff shortages and economic restraints . Nurses across the world are also still struggling for salaries which match their qualifications, skills, and contributions to health services.

As far back as 1922, in her book A Short history of nursing from the earliest times to the present day Lavinia Dock wrote: “The hours of work both in nursing schools and in private nursing are often too long, and many nurses have not yet as full opportunities as they should have for wholesome recreation and self-improvement.” She went on to say: “Graduate nurses in all branches of nursing need to have fair remuneration for their services in order that they may maintain their health and efficiency and provide for the future.”

3. The role of nurses vs. doctors

Today, nurses are mostly recognized as professional practitioners with their unique role within the health care team. However, opposition to regulatory advances such as those for extended roles of nurses and their right to prescribe within the scope of their advanced training still comes mainly from groups within the medical profession. Wherever nurses were campaigning for state registration in the early 1900’s resistance also came primarily from the medical profession.

“Resist any undue interference with nurses’ duties by medical men; the latter seemed in some cases desirous of making nurses machines for carrying out instructions,” commented Lavinia Dock during the Nursing Section of the Congress of Women in England in 1899. Also from her book, she wrote: “While most progressive medical men recognise the newer developments in nursing […] there are others who are somewhat jealous of what they consider the encroachments of nursing on medicine and who insist on going back to the old discarded system of autocratic authority on the one hand and humble subservience on the other.”

4. How and where nurses should be educated

Only over the last few decades has professional nursing education been firmly placed within the system of higher education in most countries in the world. On the basis of solid research, demonstrating the value of highly qualified nurses in reducing patient complications and deaths, government authorities are accepting that courses for professional nurses should be at least four years, preferably at the baccalaureate level. However, there is still some resistance to this development mainly from hospital authorities, and in some countries, there has been a proliferation in training lower categories of nurses.

Nurse leaders have advocated for a highly educated nursing workforce starting from the time that formal training for nurses were established. Florence Nightingale believed that nursing education should be separated from service and the nursing school she established was based on this principle. However, as more hospital schools opened and the students became a cheap workforce, the nature and quality of nurse training deteriorated rapidly into a type of apprenticeship training with little attention given to actual education. This pattern became established throughout the world.

The need for higher education for nurses was raised as early as 1893 at the global meeting of nurses at the Chicago World Fair in 1893. The nurse leaders argued for educated nurses rather than the apprentice-type training in hospitals. At the 1899 Congress of Women, Bedford Fenwick strongly opposed training which lasted only two years, “Three years is quite short enough” she said. This visionary leader also suggested that “the practical skill required might, in the future, demand a further extension of training in special branches of nursing.” At this meeting, it was also discussed that the age limit of 23 for entry into nursing was too high, as this shortened the women’s’ career and, after all, women are seen as perfectly able to be mothers at 18.

5. Professional recognition through licensure and registration

The issue of state registration or licensure for nurses has been resolved in most parts of the world although there are still countries where the International Council of Nurses (ICN) are assisting local nursing organizations and governments to establish an effective regulation of the profession. This body also has a formal regulatory network which monitors and advises on nursing management globally. The purpose of registration has always been to protect the public from those who were untrained or had minimal training, as well as to provide nurses who had proper formal training with a form of recognition.

The objective of obtaining state registration for nurses was the priority issue for nurse activists from the 1880’s. At the Chicago World’s Fair,  British nurses introduced the nurse leaders from all over the world to the idea of state registration for nurses as well as the issue of standards for nurse training schools, which would satisfy a requirement to introduce registration. The struggle for state registration was at the time also the main driving force behind the establishment of nursing organizations in various countries.

State registration was also one of the main topics of discussion at the 1899 Congress. In her paper on “The professional training and status of nurses,” Mrs. Neill from New Zealand stressed the need for a final examination by a Central Board after three years training with the certificate being registered on their books. “The value of the hospital certificate is now very low. Certificates and badges are sometimes given by hospital authorities without any examination … even after a brief hospital residence.” Miss MH Watkins of South Africa presented a paper on how state registration was achieved in South Africa in 1891. In the discussion, it was pointed out that the battle for registration was closely tied to that of voting rights for women, where social barriers to allowing women their own voice had to be overcome.

6. Nursing advocacy in the health of communities

“Nurses – A Voice to Lead” was this year’s ICN theme for nurses’ day . All nurses, wherever they find themselves, were encouraged to take an active role in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Nurses are the largest group of healthcare professionals, serving even in the most remote areas. Because nurses are the health care workers most closely involved with patients, their families, and communities, they have intimate knowledge of the underlying causes of ill-health. Using their voice in activism and innovation they can bring real change to the health of communities.

“Nurses are the largest group of healthcare professionals, serving even in the most remote areas.”

History shows us that this is not a new call on nurses and, though the language used is old-fashioned, the following might as well have been written today. During discussion time at the 1899 Woman’s Congress, Lavinia Dock said the following: “There is a call coming for nurses, who, besides professional ability, shall have such wider enthusiasms and capacities as will fit them to help in the wider world-interests concerned with the preservation of health and happiness.” In her 1922 book, she pointed out that although expert workers were now being trained to deal with the problems of poverty and other social ills “…nurses are still in the truest sense social workers, constantly battling with adverse social conditions and needing all the social knowledge and insight they can find to carry out their own social function of healing broken bodies and fighting disease. We need a whole army of energetic and courageous nurses with the spirit of the old pioneers, but with better preparation than theirs, to open up new fields and to challenge the difficult and complicated problems of our own day.”

Is patriarchy still at the root of our challenges?

Current discussions on the issues in the nursing profession still echo the following written by Lavinia Dock in 1922:

“It is, however, perfectly plain that many of the difficulties which nurses have faced in the past have been due to the fact that most of them were women […] We might apply this to the whole history of nursing and say that the status of nursing in all countries and at all times, has depended, not entirely, but to a very large extent on the status of women and on the degree of freedom which they have enjoyed.”

2 thoughts on “6 Persistent Nursing Issues and Challenges We Still Can’t Solve”

The global issue which never end . We can say that the receipee is almost similar but only in different plate. The problem with Nurses now actually not 100% will speak the same.voice. I agreed with the writer mentioned that there are also Nurse Leaders are not supporting Nursing Education for the Higher Learning as they see students could fill up the staffing gap. Make use of students as a pair of hands in the clinical areas. 2. We must move on and be.Bold , Brave and Be Brave always. As Wise old sayings…. “Brave men go forward not expecting to return. Great Crisis is produce great men and great deeds ofCourage

in spite of having a great shortage of the qualified nursing professionals there seems to be a substantial apathy in the government officials ,to facilitate nursing education. The private organizations declare that they can not afford to pay the decent salary to the nurses, nurse educators; preferring the lower quality of the nursing services and the nursing education, endangering the human health- a real wealth. Injustice on nurses is equal to injustice on the humanity. When is this scenario going to change ? Who is responsible for ill health? Can we not prevent the preventable health problems?

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