Nurses - Not the final word!

The time has come to leave Nurses and Nursing for a while! Some interviews were put on the back burner for now.

The past few weeks, we briefly commented on the history of nursing, the characteristics of the men and women who pursued the nursing vocation and the evolving and future of nursing. We also had two interviews, one with a nurse practitioner and another with Nurse William, an ER and critical care nurse.

Nurses have and are making a difference in the lives of many people. Some have left the hospitals, clinics and classrooms without leaving the organized compassion and caring that comes the Nurse. Our former, well-liked Mayor was a nurse. Some nurses have become doctors of natural medicine or alternative medicine therapists.

Nursing has certainly evolved to an empowering role and a nurse is no longer the doctor's handmaid.
Hopefully, these postings on Nurses have dispelled any myths you have about them. It will be interesting to see how nursing will further evolve in the years to come.
Agapelife

copyright/P Nicholas

Nurse William speaks.

Here is the interview with Nurse William who works in ER and Critical Care.

1. What attracted you to nursing? Was it your first profession?

I was not so much "attracted" to nursing as I was "called" to it. It was something I truly and clearly felt called to do. I was a paratrooper in the Army and then a merchant seaman before I felt the call to go into nursing. I had toyed with the idea for some years before doing it, and finally decided that if I didn't at least try I would kick myself for the rest of my life.

2. How do you view nursing after graduation and now?

My view of nursing has really not changed at all. The ethos and motivation I had during school are the same, if only a bit stronger.

3. How many years in the nursing profession

I have been in the profession for nearly seven years.

4. Is your definition of the male nurse any different from the female nurse!

Not at all. The common misconception is that men are new to the profession, which is not at all the case. Men have been nurses at least since 200BC. It was not until the advent of Florence Nightingale- and later the American Nurses Association- that men were pushed out of the profession.

In my mind, a nurse is a nurse. I am not a "male" nurse- I am a nurse. To call me otherwise is on the level of referring to someone as a "lady doctor". It demeans the title.

5. How is the public/patient reaction to a male nurse? Some examples, please!

I honestly have had no reaction from my patients, except for the patients who happened to be nurses, and then only once. She said, in a quite patronizing tone, "It's so nice to have more men in the profession." I smiled and said, "We were here first." She didn't think I was funny.

6. What would you say to men who might be considering this profession?

DO IT. You'll be kicking yourself in the butt for the rest of your life if you don't, at least give it a try.

7.Is there another area of Nursing that interests you?

Another area of nursing that has attracted my attention is disaster and mass-casualty incident preparation. I have presented the findings of a related research project to my state's Nursing Commission and I am currently working on creating a standardized statewide curriculum that would prepare nursing students and faculty for deployment as disaster/MCI clinical teams that would provide additional manpower for addressing the needs of a community affected by an event.

Thank you Nurse William and hope some of my male readers will follow your advice.

More about this nurse's views and experience on - NurseWilliam@blogspot.com

Agapelife/PNicholas

Interview with a Nurse Practitioner (PN)

Jennifer works as a Nurse Practitioner in a clinic.

Why did you chose to be a nurse and a Nurse Practitioner (NP) in particular?

I spent many years as a cashier but I had always wanted to be a nurse, then I met my husband who told me to pursue my dreams. So at age 30, I entered the nursing program with the ultimate goal of becoming a NP.

How long did it take?

7 long years, while working on the Medical-Surgical floor and a stand-by charge nurse full time, as well as being a full time mother and wife, I studied for my Degree in Nursing and NP. Now I am a Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioner (ARNP)

So who is a Nurse Practitioner?
Most people have heard the term Nurse Practitioner but don't understand what the title entails.
We order tests, diagnose diseases and treat them just like a family physician can.
What are the Pros and Cons?

Pros - ability to take care of patients and their entire family through education, diagnosing and treatment in an office setting.

Cons - not having prescriptive authority for controlled substances and not being able to follow patients into the hospital setting as the primary care provider.
In what way are you Empowering your patients?
Empower them to take charge of their own health.

What is the future of Nursing and for the NP?
It is becoming better through expansion of research, regarding treatment outcomes.

To know more about what the Nurse Practitioner does, please visit Jennifer's blog.
http://www.npplace.com OR http://arnp.blogspot.com

Thank you Jennifer for an inspiring interview!
If you have any questions or comments, please send it along.

Next Thursday September 25, our interview will be with Nurse William, an emergency care nurse.

Nursing 2030 - Future of Nursing

Here are some of the technologies that have changed the nursing career in the past century. 1. Electronic IV monitors,
2.portable defibrillators
3.computer stations
4.hands-free communication devices including remote call badges
5.portable IT devices.
6.drug management technology to regulate dosage of medications.
Yet with all these advances, there is an acute nursing shortage in many parts of the world. By the year 2020, it is estimated there will be a shortage of 800,000 nurses.
Buerhaus, JAMA,2000

In the 1990's I wrote a skit for a degree nursing course called Nursing 2020 and some of my fellow classmates enacted it out. I had a challenging time to convince these registered nurses that charting would be done at the bedside on computers and that hospital cleaning would be done by robots.

Three years later, working in Florida, the former was a reality. While visiting a maternity hospital in Singapore, I was going to an elevator when I was told by a voice to move out of the way which I did and stared in disbelief at the machine that gave the command. It was taking food trays to the patients on the floor and was gave the command after entering the elevator for the particular floor.

New technological advances are continuing?
R2D2 - Robot nurses could be in hospitals by 2020! (Warwick University Engineering Dept, UK.)
What are your views? Would robots take over as Nurses?
Will hospitals be managed by Nurses?

Some Nurses are already ordering treatments and medications. They are the NP - licensed Nurse Practitioners. On next Tuesday's post, we will have the interview with Nurse Practitioner, Jennifer and the following week, we will have the interview with Nurse William!

Agapelife
copyright/P Nicholas

Who Becomes a Nurse?

Before we peer into the future of the Nurse and Nursing, let us discuss the characters of people who enter the nursing vocation. In the days of Florence Nightingale and before, it was middle class ladies who were altruistic or nuns and monks as the extension of their religious vocation.
in Europe.
In the forties and fifties, some nurses might tell you that they became nurses as there was not much opportunities for women in other fields.

Traits of nurses include compassion,intelligence, diligence ethical,non-judgemental, confident, problem solver, multi-tasking,humorous,
politeness, flexibility, well organized,precision,intuitive, a good listener,patient advocate and many other traits which will need a longer posting. Do send me traits not mentioned in your comments?

Irregular Nursing shifts, physically or verbally abused by patients, working extra shifts, working weekends, call back on days off, no room for errors are all part and parcel of a nurse's life. Through all this, the nurse is expected to be kind,polite and smile without retaliation of any kind. Is it any wonder, that some think nurses have a masochistic trait as well.
On several occasions previously, when I was assigned to six patients and four of them in the same room were asking me, at the same time to attend to their requests, while I was doing a treatment on one, I remember saying " I am not an octopus, only a nurse", which made them laugh. Many times, I felt I needed more arms to tend to the patients assigned to me.

As one nurse wrote on her blog posting, -
"Nursing is head on, hands on, heart on, all together, all at once, maybe that is enough explanation why there is a Nursing Shortage; because not a lot of people can be all that, all at once".
may at www.aboutanurse.com
Agapelife
copyright/P.Nicholas

The Nurse and the Past 50 Years

Physicians gave the orders, Nurses implemented them!This is how the nursing profession have been linked with the medical profession and still continues, in many areas. In the last fifty years, some changes have occurred that does not make the above statement accurate to all nurses! LPN or licensed practical nurses have taken over the bedside nursing in many facilities, especially in Long Term Care but they do work under the Registered Nurses' supervision.

In order to make these postings simple, all the Nurses I mention in the next paragraphs are Registered Nurses who are either educated in a nursing college or a university and all have post-graduate studies in some specializations.

You, most probably have heard of ICU (intensive care unit), ECU (emergency care unit), CCU(cardiac care unit) Dialysis unit. All these units are specialty units and the nurses who work there have extra education and certification above their basic nursing education.

Scientific and Medical discoveries like radium, vaccines and antibiotics expanded the role of the nurse. Then in the last 15 years, informatics has changed the mode of recording data and treatments.

Nurses are now working in other areas besides the traditional hospitals and Nursing Homes. Community Health Nurses work in clinics and visit homes to do assessments on home-bound clients. Public Health Nurses work in municipal and other government agencies, teaching, researching on disease prevention and policies for health protocols. Occupational Health Nurses work with employees, in industries and organizations.

Nurse Researchers, nurse Educators are found in colleges, universities and some major research facilities. There are also Nurse Anaesthetists, Nurse Case Managers, Mental Health Nurses

The Informatics Nurse is a new addition in the last decade and she is responsible for teaching her colleagues on IT related documentation as well as formulating new applications for nurses. Another new addition is the Nurse Practitioner who is able to diagnose and prescribe some medication and treatments independently. Usually, she works in a community clinic or Wellness Centres. Sometimes, she works in partnership with a family physician in an office setting!
Yet another is the Nurse Entrepreneur - she is a business owner either online or off-line.

So what is next for the Nurse?? Tune in on Tuesday?
Agapelife

copyright P Nicholas

Nurse - Who was the first Nurse?

Let me ask you a question? When you were feeling unwell or when you had a cough or cold as a child, who was the first person who gave you care, till you became better? Many of us will answer - mother, grandmother,aunt. Likewise, the first nurse was untrained and the female member of a family.

The history of nursing seem to be synonymous with the history of women.(V.Robbins)
Yet both sexes have the tendency to respond to helplessness (Donahue,M.96) The first religious orders had male nurses caring for their sick in the monasteries in the middle ages as women were not allowed in the enclosures.

Nursing was part of many religious orders who followed Christ's mandate in ministering to the sick. In 1633, St. Vincent de Paul and Louise Marillac of France founded the Daughters of Charity who looked after the sick in their homes and in hospitals. In the Americas, Jeanne Mance founded the first hospital in Montreal in 1645 and in 1783, James Derham, a slave in New Orleans, through the earnings as a nurse bought his freedom.

In the nineteen century in the England, Florence Nightingale, initiated Evidence-Based Nursing after she went to France to learn from the Daughters of Charity, their methods in caring for the sick. She included statistics and a systemic approach to nursing. She and the women she trained were ladies who volunteered their services without being paid.



So in England in the nineteenth century, nurses' training was provided for those who cared for the sick and carried out their duties under the direction of a physician. I mentioned England, because all the Commonwealth countries adopted the same training as those in England. Training was provided in hospital schools, and usually an unmarried girl or widow was accepted. They were trained on the job and were required to live in nursing residences attached or close to the hospital. There was a nursing hierarchy

The student nurses were paid a stipend while they trained, which usually lasted for three years when they are promoted to staff nurse. The next level is a nursing sister (only a few reached this status, as many of the staff nurses married and left the hospital to raise a family. Nursing sister did not marry. They were provided lodging and the acted as supervisors and teachers.

The final level in the nursing ladder was the Matron, who also was unmarried. Physicians at times were intimidated by the Matron. Nurses usually stayed in the residences except for their occasional week-ends off. White, starched, a-line,modest, dress uniforms and little caps or veils were part of the scenery in hospitals for two centuries.

Florence's contribution to nursing and health, included, careful statistical data collection and thorough documentation. She changed Public Health and reformed the hospital environment, including basic infection control. You can read more about Florence in this website - http://spartacus.schoolnet.com.uk/re nightingale.htm

This is only a brief description of the history of nursing and the Nurse! There is a great volume of information on the web and in books, describing the history of nursing in the individual countries.
From its history, we can travel to the present and see the paths, Nursing and the Nurse evolving, in the area of education, duties, opportunities and empowerment.

The next posting will be nursing in the last 50 years. Would like to hear from Nurses, retired or still working as well as student nurses!
Agapelife
copyright/pnicholas

The Nurse - Who and Why?

A discussion in a social blog forum, about how the general public perceived Nurses prompted this series. I was prompted to write this as I spent many years in the different areas of nursing, from medical-surgical in the hospitals to Home Health and Long Term / Chronic Care, from bedside nursing to teaching, supervision and case management. All along, nursing has evolved and continues to evolve!

In the next few postings, we will touch briefly on, the History of Nursing. Who becomes a Nurse? Why Nursing as opposed to other careers? Why is there a shortage of Nurses? Will it improve? Technology and Nursing, The evolution of Nursing! What will nursing in 2030 be like? We will have short interviews with perhaps five or six nurses, each in a different area of nursing.

So join me in the next few weeks, as we explore this noble, dynamic yet vulnerable profession. We would also like to hear your positive and not so positive impact of nurses or nursing on your life.

Have Nurses contributed to society? Have Nurses made a difference in your life? Do you see a future in Nursing? If you are looking for a career, would you choose Nursing or Not? What are the reasons? Would Robots ever replace a Registered Nurse??

After you have read the completed work (expected date of completion - mid-Septemeber), perhaps, you will no longer have myths about Nurses and the Nursing Profession?