Misconceptions Of Discovering Nursing

Discovering Nursing For the longest time, I thought nurses played a small role in health care. I also had the mindset that nurses were kind of like “servants” to the patients, and all they did was ensure that the patients were comfortable and happy. Because of these misconceptions, I never really thought about being a nurse until my senior year of high school. At the time, I was working part- time at a family restaurant, and I didn’t know what I would do for the rest of my life. I was always interested in the medical field and I found learning about the human body to be interesting, but I didn’t want to be a doctor. When I finally decided to research some things about nursing, I was surprised by the vast amount of roles and responsibilities

A more specific definition of nursing is “the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human responses, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations” (Doenges, Moorhouse, & Murr, 2016, p.1). As nurses, we must utilize the nursing process and be able to assess, diagnose, plan, implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of our plan. In order to create a plan of care, nurses must consider the patient’s opinions and thoughts, meaning that the nurse must engage with the patient and build a relationship with them. However, the patient is not the only person that we are forming a relationship with, but also the family members. Unfortunately, many nurses fail to engage with their patients according to a study carried out by Amorim et al. (2017). Creating a relationship with the patient and their family is an important part of creating a care plan with mutual goals. In addition to having a relationship with the patient, nurses must also be able to effectively collaborate with other health care providers in order to help create the most effective plan of care for the

My father is not fluent in English, so I had to take him around to different hospitals and doctor’s offices and translate for him. I was very impressed with how the nurse made eye contact not just with me, but also with my father, who didn’t know what the nurses were saying most of the time. The eye contact actually encouraged my father to try to explain things himself, and even when he said something that didn’t make a lot of sense, the nurse would maintain a straight face. When I had to take my father to the emergency room one day, I was going through a very hard time trying to balance school, work, and caring for my dad’s health. Even after my father went away to get tests done, the nurse would pop in occasionally and ask if we were comfortable and if there was anything she could do for us. The simple act of kindness by this nurse made me feel like somebody was watching out for me for once, and it made my day in the emergency room a lot less