Challenging Roles of Nurses
Kelsey Wilkerson
Jackson State Community College
Challenging Roles of Nurses
“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.” Dag Hammarskjold sums up all of healthcare in this simple statement. The care given by a nurse can aid in healing, or cause major damage. In every different setting that we find nurses, the roles they fulfill are very demanding. While nursing care is the same in the basics, every department has different demands placed on nurses. We are going to look at the differences and similarities of the role nurses play in the emergency department and in the intensive care unit.
Nurses in the ICU and the ER perform some of the same skills.
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Such tasks include, administering medications, like Morphine, that may lower the respiratory drive of patients who are already struggling to breathe.
Nurses in the critical care setting will have a more complex set of skills than most nurses. These nurses are constantly dealing with ventilator systems, sensitive drains, and unstable patients. They administer highly potent drugs on a daily basis. Critical care nurses have to be quick in the event of an emergency, but also have to thoroughly think about what they are doing and effects the medications they are giving will have on their patients. Martin states that “Nurses must recognize that the overall goal of care (or treatment goal) is specifically related to a patient’s values and quality-of-life preferences and should not be confused with daily goals, care plans, and treatment tasks,” (Martin, 2010, p. 69). This is a hard line to ride in assuring individualized and holistic care to every patient.
The positions held by critical care nurses and emergency room nurses differ somewhat. While critical care nurses are mostly taking care of very ill patients, emergency room nurses encounter a variety of illnesses at different stages. ER nurses have the daunting responsibility to decide which patient is “most critical” and needs to be seen immediately, but also know that the other patients are sick and can’t wait all day and night just to be seen. These nurses know that saving lives really is part of their job. They
It is no secret that communication is key when providing direct patient care in a skilled nursing facility. However, there is a noticeable lapse in the communication between the care team when providing care to the individual or groups of individuals. Two main parts of any care team are the registered nurse and the certified nursing assistant, as these are the two people whom have the most direct and impactful roles with residents in a skilled facility. The Registered Nurse and the Certified Nursing Assistant play similar roles in providing patient care, but have different roles in its entirety. The role of the Registered Nurse (RN) is defined as having the competency and skill to provide direct and indirect health care to individuals, their families, and communities around them. Services are also provided designed to give out medications, to promote comfort or healing, promote healing, and to also provide the dignity of their patients and patient’s families (American College of Rheumatology, 2015).
Nurses enter the workforce to help patients get better. Sometimes those patients require Intensive Care. In those cases, the Critical Care nurse becomes involved. There are costs to the intense treatment though. In 2013, Todaro-Franceschi stated that,
The tasks that are neglected are due to improper staffing levels in the hospital, forcing the nurses to place priorities on the most critical components of patient care. When provided with appropriate staffing ratios, the staff is better equipped to deliver patient care and the various unplanned task that arise in daily patient care. Studies have shown, “a higher proportion of RNs among the nursing staff is associated with shorter hospital stays and lower failure-to-rescue rates, inpatient mortality, cardiac arrest and hospital-acquired pneumonia rates” (Hinno et al., 2012).
Morton, P. G., Fontaine, D., Hudak, C. M., & Gallo, B. M. (2017). Critical care nursing: a holistic approach (p. 1056). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
The medical professionals attending the patients have to chose the difference between life and death. As an emergency department nurse you have the iron in the fire to work as a segment in a significant medical team in an undertaking to assist patients facing devastating injuries also unexpected serious illnesses.
Emergency nurses often care for a variety of patients with minor injuries to critical illnesses. It is emergency nurses that frequently see patients before physicians. This sequence makes it especially important for emergency nurses to be able to rapidly assess and treat patients. Emergency nurses are expected to be knowledgeable in a multitude of areas and skilled at several tasks. It is experience that typically
There is a lack of medical professionals being adequately trained to handle the increased demand for the complex health care in America (Stock, McDermott, & McDermott, 2014). Many hospitals experience nursing shortfalls due to this shortage. However, this decrease is in part due to the number of qualified nurses that leave the field due to burnout. The profession of emergency nursing is both physically and emotionally demanding. Complex patient loads, long shifts, and a fast-paced environment can cause stress for emergency department nurses (Hunsaker, Chen, Maughan, & Heaston, 2015). As a result, over 30 percent of emergency department Registered Nurses (RNs) surveyed in 2013 indicated that they plan to leave the field in the next year (AMN Healthcare, 2013).
Emergency nurses often care for a variety of patients from small injuries to critical illnesses. It is emergency nurses that often see patients before physicians. It is this that makes it especially important for emergency nurses to be able to assess rapidly and treat patients. Emergency nurses are expected to be knowledgeable in many areas and skilled in many tasks. It is experience that typically turns a good emergency
There is a lack of medical professionals being adequately trained to handle the increased demand for complex health care in America (Stock, McDermott, & McDermott, 2014). Many hospitals experience nursing shortfalls due to this shortage. However, this decrease is in part due to the number of qualified nurses that leave the field due to burnout. The profession of emergency nursing is both physically and emotionally demanding. Complex patient loads, long shifts, and a fast-paced environment can cause stress for emergency department nurses (Hunsaker, Chen, Maughan, & Heaston, 2015). As a result, over 30 percent of emergency department Registered Nurses (RNs) surveyed in 2013 indicated that they plan to leave the field in the next year (AMN Healthcare, 2013).
Providing care to the patient in the intensive care unit is a complex task involving many interrelated concepts. Some nursing concepts that are important to include in everyday care of an intensive care patient include knowledge, caring, comfort, collaboration, prevention, and advocacy. When the nurse is competent in all concepts the most effective and holistic care is provided for the intensive care patient.
Nursing is the practice that involves patient care and safety because nurses treat and monitor a patient. Nurses have a huge responsibility that requires intensive training and knowledge within this position. The ability to make your own decisions is a huge responsibility, for example working in a pre-operative surgical unit and PACU (post anesthesia care unit) requires healthcare workers to work as a team. Nurse constantly have to work with anesthesiologist and surgeons in order to make decisions that will have an impact on a patient. Anesthesiologist are great to back up nurses in a difficult decision. Nurses sometimes have to follow their gut instinct that they know will comfort a patient . It is labor intensive because it is hands on work that involves helping
According to Dictionary.com, a nurse is a person formally educated and trained in the care of the sick or infirm. Nurses are essential to the healthcare team, whether in a hospital or a doctor’s office. “The nurse focuses on helping patients meet their needs, including physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual needs (Rijal N.D.)”. Nurses are set in place to ensure that patients are treated correctly and suit their needs while they are caring for them. They also have more roles than just physically taking care of patients. Nurses are in charge of implementing the physician’s orders, putting data in data in charts, and recording patient health vitals. The roles of nurses vary depending on the type of nurse. “For example, in the hospital setting the registered nurse is often the health care professional who spends the most time directly with the patient (Rijal N.D.)”. With that being said, nurses must have a number of key qualities to be successful, such as passion, be self-motivation, and education.
Nurses assume many roles during the course of their practice, with each role being as important as the next. There are many roles of a nurse which can include being a caregiver, teacher, advocate, manager, or colleague. Though each role may be of equal importance, there are roles that may need prioritized depending on the situation. The patient is the most important factor in this equation and understanding the nurses’ role will create an optimal health environment to assist in the patient’s course to recovery.
In many industries there are problems that workers face but majority of these workers are nurses. Nurses play a vital role in our society but we face nurse shortages which lead to problems in the healthcare industry. When there are a shortage of nurses’ things can become frustrating because one nurse can only do so much. In nursing they have a triage. A triage is where a nurse decides what person to help according to their injury. Nurses check the person really quick and mark them either green, yellow, red, or black. Green through red is from least to greatest amount of trauma and black is death. Nurses are never allowed to tell people in those kind of situations if they will live or die which makes their jobs a lot more complicated.
Emergency nurses in this society is now faced with a rising dilemma of increased dissatisfaction in their work and their role as a caregiver. The Emergency department (ED) is where we can find a channel of activities surrounding patients who present with differing needs, urgency, and levels of care. Effort management and Mutual Authority are factors in addressing this dilemma of ED nurses. The need to identify such rising difficulty can be addressed through scrutinizing the relationship of effort against authority.