The Importance Of Tribes In Nursing

Tribes and How it Applies to Nursing in the 21st Century The field of nursing is continually evolving, and improving within all aspects of the expertise. Today, nursing in the 21st century is vastly different than it was when Florence Nightingale founded the practice as an occupation in the 1850s (Winkelstein, 2009). Although nursing has transformed in a variety of ways, one thing that remains constant is the basic need for leadership and guidance in the profession. There are numerous books on the market today that explore the concept of leadership and its role, how to obtain it, how to be a good leader, etc. Tribes, written by Seth Godin, investigates the topic of the world being divided into millions of tribes, yet there is no one to lead them (2008). A tribe, according to Godin, is any group of people, large or small, connected to one another, a leader, and an idea (2008). According to this definition, I would consider nursing to fall into a tribe category. After reading the book, I evaluated and analyzed the concepts/background/history of the book, how the topic could be applied to the certain nursing roles within the practice, how the concepts in the book could be used in my own practice, and my own personal growth from reading this book.

However, the notion that I believe will apply most to my own practice is the idea proposed in the book about how in order to enact change, one must go against the status quo at times (Godin, 2008). This viewpoint reminded me of a topic that was discussed in my foundations nursing class pertaining to the sacred cow and nursing. Sacred cow is a term that stands for facts, protocols, standard of practice, etc. that have laid the foundation of nursing practice (Rauen, Chulay, Bridges, Vollman, & Arbour, 2008). In order to lead a change in the continually evolving nursing field, going against the sacred cow policy may be in