NURSING

Nursing

Nursing

Introduction

The nursing profession calls for interpersonal skills (respect for others, sense of teamwork), psychological and physical resistance, temporal availability (days, nights, weekends, holidays), intellectual and moral capacities for exercising responsibilities in an ever-changing medical context. Continuing training and regular adaptation to the sector's constant advances are indispensable (Aledort 2006).

Discussion

Depiction of Nurses & Their Communication with Patients

Nurse informatics manages and communicates nursing data and information to improve decision making by consumers, patients, nurses, and other healthcare providers. RNs also may work as healthcare consultants, public policy advisors, pharmaceutical and medical supply researchers and salespersons, and medical writers and editors (Butenas 2000).

Some nurses have jobs that require little or no direct patient care, but still require an active RN license. Forensics nurses participate in the scientific investigation and treatment of abuse victims, violence, criminal activity, and traumatic accident. Infection control nurses identify, track, and control infectious outbreaks in healthcare facilities and develop programs for outbreak prevention and response to biological terrorism. Nurse educators plan, develop, implement, and evaluate educational programs and curricula for the professional development of student nurses and RNs (Bolton 2003).

As Federal and Provincial governments wrestle with the economic crisis, Ministries of Health in every province are frantically and systematically introducing actions and major reforms to curb escalating health care expenditures. The reforms that are being introduced with an alarming speed are less of a threat to nurses than they are to doctors (Butenas 2000). The impending battles over professional turf will ultimately shape the nature and design of the new systems. This crisis constitutes an opportunity for nurses to become engaged in the reform process and thus shape the health care delivery system to their advantage.

Even those nurses who are not locked in a day-to-day struggle to make ends meet are vulnerable to sudden changes of circumstances - such as new shift patterns. Equally, those nurses who are helping to deliver new models of care, by committing to work in the community are finding themselves financially penalised (Aledort 2006). Both these facts are something that those wrapped up in planning service reconfiguration would do well to remember.

But despite these troubling findings could, ironically, things are improving for nurses - at least in relative financial terms?

The latest version of the global financial crisis is finally slowing inflation in some - if not all - products and services, and the emergency interest rate cut will come as blessed relief to many nurses struggling with steep mortgage repayments (Butenas 2000). What's more, while those in banking, construction and retail will fear for their future employment, nursing looks like a safe port amid the economic storm, especially as it boasts pensions that are not linked to the plunging stock markets.

Unfortunately things are not that simple. While the fire may be reducing in intensity, the frying pan is ready and waiting.

Around half of NT's readers are the main breadwinners in their household. For those - and others making an important contribution to their family's take-home pay - the pressure to maximise their earnings is ...