Professional nursing practice

Week 1
Unit 1 nursing issues
Professional nursing practice
Nursing is a profession focused on assisting individuals, families, and communities to attain, recover, and maintain
optimum health and function from birth to old age. Nursing care involves any number of activities, from carrying out
complicated technical procedures to something as seemingly simple as holding a hand. Nursing is a blend of science and art.
The science of nursing is the knowledge base for the care that is given, and the art of nursing is the skilled application
of that knowledge to help others reach maximum health and quality of life.

The International Council of Nurses (2002) captures much of what nursing means in its definition:
Nursing encompasses autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups, and communities,
sick or well and in all settings. Nursing includes the promotion of health, prevention of illness, and the care of
ill, disabled, and dying people.
Advocacy, promotion of a safe environment, research, participation in shaping health policy and in patient and health systems management, and education are also key nursing roles.

Many definitions of nursing within the discipline are adopted , beginning with Florence Nightingale (1859/1946), who claimed that “a nurse is any person in charge of the personal health of another,” that nursing is “the act of using the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery,” and that “what nursing has to do . . . is put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him

During the latter half of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s, which was a time when nursing programs were rapidly moving into universities, a number of nurse grand theorists emerged, prompted by the need to describe and justify nursing as an academic discipline
Other nurse theorists—mainly Orlando (1961, 1972 . These theories began with the assumptions that nursing is an independent profession and that what nursing is already known , The purpose of the practice theories was to guide practice and practice research by underscoring that the most pressing need was to describe the outcomes of nursing.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A PROFESSION
For nearly a century, scholars have grappled with the meaning of profession. They have generally agreed that a profession is an occupational group with a set of attitudes or behaviors, or both.
1. Prolonged specialized training in a body of abstract knowledge
2. A service orientation
3. An ideology based on the original faith professed by members
4. An ethic that is binding on the practitioners
5. A set of skills that forms the technique of the profession
6. A guild of those entitled to practice the profession
7. Authority granted by society in the form of licensure or certification
8. A recognized setting in which the profession is practiced
9. A theory of societal benefits derived from the ideology
10. Code of ethics
11. Ongoing research
12. Autonomy
OCCUPATION
Training may occur on the job.
Length of training varies.
Work is largely manual..
Decision making is guided largely by experience or by trial and error.
Values, beliefs, and ethics are not prominent features of preparation.
Commitment and personal identification vary.
Workers are supervised.
People often change jobs..
Material reward is main motivation.
Accountability rests primarily with employer.
PROFESSION

Education takes place in a college or university
Education is prolonged.
Work involves mental creativity
Decision making is based largely on science or theoretical constructs (evidence-based practice).
Values, beliefs, and ethics are an integral part of preparation.
Commitment and personal identification are strong.
Workers are autonomous.
People are unlikely to change professions
Commitment transcends material reward
Accountability rests with individual
Approaches to defining a profession
In common use, terms such as position, job, occupation, profession, professional, and professionalism
often are used interchangeably and incorrectly.
The following definitions will clarify what is meant by these terms within this text:
Position: A group of tasks assigned to one individual
Job: A group of positions similar in nature and level of skill that can be carried out by one or more individuals
Occupation: A group of jobs similar in type of work that are usually found throughout an industry or work environment
Profession: A type of occupation that requires prolonged preparation and formal qualifications and meets certain higher level criteria (discussed later in this chapter) that raise it to a level above that of an occupation
Professional: A person who belongs to and practices a profession (The term professional is probably
the most misused of all these terms when describing people who are clearly involved in job or occupations, such as a “professional truck driver,” “professional football player,” or even “professional thief
Dimensions of Nursing Practice
Clinical Nursing:
fundamental nursing, to meet basic needs of clients; specialty nursing, based on nursing science and specialty theories, knowledge and skills; Community-based health care, directed toward a specific population or group within the community
Nursing Education:
based on nursing science and education theories; controlled by the state education and health care guide.
Nursing Management:
systematic management of factors as nursing professional staff, technologies, equipment, information, financing.
Nursing Research:
Forms of nursing in hospital
Case management: cared by some fixed nurses
Functional nursing: centered by orders
Nursing in groups:
Primary nursing:
Systematic holistic nursing: philosophy, responsibility, forms