Nursing Roles

Nursing Roles

Introduction

Nursing as a profession has been built up over the centuries and more rapidly in recent decades as medicine, these developments demand a quality education with human, scientific, technical and ethical, to meet all human responses of patient family and community, that have been modified by biotechnology developments, new lifestyles, socio-economic changes, new family structures due to migration, the environment polluted by the same man, minimizing appearance of the traditional cultures, especially in health aspects.

This reality demands training and improved health practices with knowledge of the biological and social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, ethics, bioethics, behavior and theology itself, to guide the international teamwork, and multidisciplinary trans professional people and we do not health professionals.

Nursing is the ultimate academic discipline and practice profession, which has shaped leadership displayed by women throughout the pace of time. Nursing was historically viewed as an extension of a woman's role in the home. Organized nursing had its roots in religious orders of women and men, such as the Knights Templar, dating back centuries before the era of Florence Nightingale, considered the mother of professional nursing. Nightingale was a leader not only in nursing but in her country. She set the stage for leadership for the thousands of women across the world that would come behind her to lead nursing into the next two centuries.

Historical Roles of Early Nursing

During the last half of the 20th century, globally there were cyclical nursing shortages that were generally resolved by the efforts of nurse educators and nurse administrators to recruit more students into programs. Associate degree nursing programs were proposed in the 1950s in response to nursing shortages after both World War II and the Korean War. During shortages of the late 1980s, some programs reduced their admission or progression requirements or both of these to ensure that more students moved through the pipeline to become graduate nurses. Schools that lowered their admission and retention standards often experienced greater failure rates on the national nursing licensure examination that all graduates take for licensure as registered nurses.

A major change in the field of nursing has occurred over the past century that has led to a focus on quality care and comprehensive care received by the humanist paradigm. Innovations in the area of responsibility and professional orientation have shaped the role of the nurse. Globalization has changed the traditional role of nursing; the advent of technology in the field of health care has transformed the discipline to a great extent. The hospital currently has a wide field of research into the processes of health sector reform, both in the field of large population groups and in terms of organization and management of services. The establishments of different types of practice, as well as with regard to education, human resource, and major ethical dilemmas will continue presenting in this century (Hamric, 2005).

Current Nursing as a Social Practice

The nurse, in the current health services, has been alienated from the activities under its technical preparation, and has ...