NURSING AND COMMUNICATION

Nursing and Communication

Nursing and Communication

Introduction

There are so many different areas in the field of medicine and health care. Some chose to become surgeons, some consultants, some pharmacists, and some nurses. All of these different professions within the medicine and health care field work toward one common goal. The goal is to serve and work towards the betterment of health, and to cure people. To become a surgeon or a doctor, one may need to undergo training for many years. As the role of doctors is important, so is the role of nurses. A nurse is a professional who assists doctors and looks after the patients. (Nightingale, 1860) In the year 1860 gave the definition of nursing as, “the act of utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him or her in the recovery”. The roots of nursing profession in the United States can be traced back in the history. In the year 1775, during the revolutionary war, the generals of the United States of America requested George Washington that they need some nurses to look after and attend the sick people, and to obey their matrons. After this a law was passed in the United States of America that for every ten people sick, one nurse should be provided, and for every hundred patients, one matron will be provided.

This was the time which gave birth to the profession of nursing. After this many people, went to pursue a career in this field. Initially, the majority of the people went in to the nursing profession were females. Subsequently, many male members of the society went to pursue a career in this field as well. Now we can see people from different ethnicities entering in this field (Polaschek, 1998, pp.452-57). The role of nursing, in the field of medicine, also struggled initially with the hierarchy in medicine. It was argued that the role and the foremost reason of nursing were only to follow the orders of the physicians. In the early 1900's, study of medicine was discouraged by formal learning through books, soon the colleges and medical institutes were controlled by hospitals. Many hospitals and medical facilities saw women as cheap or no cost labor. The exploitation of nurses became very common by their employers, doctors, medical institutes and schools. The nursing profession started being controlled by the medicine, and this is how it became a part of the overall medicine field. In the 1800's, a body was formed in the United States of America, which was called the Nurses Associated Alumnae, however, the name was changed to American Nurses Association in the 1900's. The definition of nursing given by the American Nursing Association is, “Nursing is the promotion, protection, 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 care of individuals, families, communities, and populations” (American Nurses Association, 2012). The body was formed to protect and regulate the field of nursing in the ...