Professional Roles & Values
Nurses play an influential role in enhancing patient care through professional nursing standards. This necessitates nurses to identify and abide by the code of ethics, exemplify professional mannerisms, and valuing ethical decisions in healthcare.
A. Functional Differences
A regulatory agency is defined as a governmental organization generated to establish regulations and apply specific laws that govern a particular industry such as healthcare. These laws include criteria for educational standards, discipline of professionals, and scope of practice to protect the health and safety of individuals (Russell, 2012). The Board of Nursing is an example of a regulatory agency, approved by each states legislature, established by the nurse practice act. The Board of Nursing functions in
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Theory in Professional Practice Patricia Benner’s Novice to Expert theory resembles the path I endure through my professional nursing practice. This assisted in my advancement of knowledge and performance. As evident in Benner’s theory, the growth of skills and understanding is founded on practice and career progression (Nursing Theory, 2013).
Patricia Benner recognizes stage one as novice; the nurse with no experience requires prompting associated with lack of self-assurance in skill demonstration (Nursing Theory, 2013). I recall being that nurse with no experience in long term care, someone directing me, providing guidance in the nursing process. I would ask questions frequently because I did not feel confident in my role since I was a new RN.
As a nurse continues her journey she moves through stage two, advanced beginner. In this stage the nurse exhibits slight satisfactory performance with intermittent reminders (Nursing Theory, 2013). As I progressed to advance beginner, I continued to have questions, however those questions had decreased. I began to function more independently and sought alternative resources when I had
As a nurse it is our primary job to protect and promote the well being of patients throughout the health care industry. Each nurse has the responsibility to practice faithfully and to uphold all ethical values. These values are outlined and regulated by two very important entities, The Nursing Practice Acts and the Texas Board of Nursing. Nursing Practice Acts, are specific laws in each state that define a nurse’s scope of practice. These acts were first established in 1909 with the purpose of protecting public health, safety, and welfare. Their purpose is to provide rules and regulations that will protect society from unsafe and unqualified nurses. Nursing professionalism is rooted in the ethics and ...
Carper’s (1978) pivotal work of identifying nursing’s ways of knowing was a seminal work that laid the foundation for further analysis. Her ways of knowing have identified methods that have allowed the nursing discipline to further its own knowledge as well as the profession. Two other ways of knowing have emerged, Munall’s (1993) “unknowing” pattern; and also sociopolitical knowing by Zander (2011, p. 9) or emancipatory pattern (Chinn & Kramer, 2011, p. 5). Here these patterns are discussed through experiences in my personal practice.
According to American Nurses Association (ANA), (2010) “the nurse promotes, advocates for and strives to protect the heath, safety and right of the patient” (p. 6). Nursing responsibilities should be acted at the highest standard and must be based on legal and ethical obligations.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) developed a foundation for which all nurses are expected to perform their basic duties in order to meet the needs of the society we serve. The ANA “has long been instrumental in the development of three foundational documents for professional nursing; its code of ethics, its scope and standards of practice, ands statement of social policy.” (ANA, 2010, p. 87) The ANA defined nursing as “the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations” and used to create the scope and standards of nursing practice. (ANA, 2010, p. 1) These “outline the steps that nurses must take to meet client healthcare needs.” () The nursing process, for example, is one of the things I use daily. Other examples include communicating and collaborating with my patient, their families, and my peers, and being a lifelong learner. I continually research new diagnoses, medications, and treatments for my patients. As a nurse of ...
Walker, L.O., & Avant, K.C. (2005). Strategies for theory construction in nursing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Thorne, S. (2010). Theoretical Foundation of Nursing Practice. In P.A, Potter, A.G. Perry, J.C, Ross-Kerr, & M.J. Wood (Eds.). Canadian fundamentals of nursing (Revised 4th ed.). (pp.63-73). Toronto, ON: Elsevier.
The article was complicated, but it helped address the learning patterns and what a nurse needs to know in their practice to better themselves and provide the best care for a patient. By acknowledging the patient as a person, applying science based practice, using artful skills, and ethically providing care to a patient, the nurse extends their patterns of knowing and forms their knowledge base.
The best way to look at nursing theories is like the foundational block. Nursing theories are important set the tone of how a nurse will practice. A nurse will use intuition, practice, past expertise and events, and couple with learned theories to work every day in order to give the best patient care. it is all the more important to appreciate what first advanced nursing beyond mechanisms of practice to becoming a knowledge-based force in healthcare: That force is nursing theory and the theoretical thinking and research that generate theory. The complexity and depth of nursing are reflected in its structure of knowledge, which includes discipline-specific components such as philosophies, theories, and research and practice methodologies”( Reed, 2006). Patient care is a wide topic, but a key role in a patient’s care is the patient themselves, an educated patient is vital to their well being and higher level of care.
Hood, L. (2013). Leddy & Pepper 's conceptual bases of professional nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Hood, J. (2010). Conceptual bases of professional nursing. (7th ed. ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
In her theory, nursing skills and experiences are what is required to become an expert. Each step a nurse takes to build up their skills to master the expert level is built upon the previous steps. The nurse needs to have a good foundation in order to move them closer to obtaining the expert level. Benner’s theory also showed that practicing nurses can and should form theory (Current Nursing, 2013). Benner’s theory has five levels: the novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert. The novice needs to be told what to do. Advanced beginner can recognize components that reoccur. A competent nurse is one that has had two-three years in the same type of situations. The proficient nurse starts to look at the whole picture and starts to critically think. The expert nurse does not need to look at the guidelines to react. An expert nurse has had many similar situations that, he or she can reflect upon a situation, analyze it and react quickly. Benner’s theory will be applied by discussing the problem,. a strategy to solve the problem,. discussion around the strategy and problem,. and finally the conclusion,. which will state what new knowledge was gathered by the
These views imply that real life experiences test theoretical foundation, allowing for an individual to gain what is referred to as practical knowledge. This knowledge consists of a combination between theory and practice, allowing for a more holistic approach to patient care. Benner credits her differentiation of “knowing how” and “knowing that” to the ideals of philosophers Kuhn and Polyani. The premise of “knowing how” is related to nursing practice, whereas the basis for “knowing that” is associated with nursing theory. Due to the complex circumstances surrounding different clinical situations, theory alone would be inadequate for providing proficient patient care. Because of this, the importance of examining nurse practice is invaluable to further the development of nursing theory (Alligood,
Parker M. E., & Smith M. C. (2010). Nursing theories and nursing practice (3rd ed.).
Fawcett, J. (2001). The nurse theorists: 21st-century updates - - Dorothea E. Orem. Journal of Nursing Science Quarterly, 14(1), 34-38. doi: 10.1177/08943180122108021.
Nursing theory can be used to empower nurses by giving autonomy and improve skills. With the rise of healthcare, administrative decisions involving nurses could have a negative effect on patient care. There are four concepts that make up the nursing metaparadigm, person, environment, health and nursing and act as the model for nursing care. All theories in the nursing practice proves valuable within the profession but may vary between different theorists depending on what their beliefs are. Some theorists can view the same situation entirely different. Both Rogers and Neuman were theorist that developed theories for viewing and caring for patients but in two different ways. Professionalization, coherence, and enhanced communication are three arguments when determining the importance of theory in nursing. Multi-disciplinary nursing becomes necessary to achieve positive patient