How Nurses also Need to Teach and Educate Their Patients

As a nurse there are multiple roles and responsibilities one must uphold to, to be successful and professional. A nurse is expected to grow professionally and personally throughout their career by identifying values, by reflecting on actions and ideas and gaining more knowledge with each new experience. To be successful one must commit to the growth and development of their knowledge and experience and strive to be an effective nurse. A nurse is responsible for being the patient’s caregiver, decision maker, communicator, advocate and teacher. Not only are these roles an important part of being successful as a nurse, they are also an important part of ensuring the safety of the patient. A nurse is responsible and accountable for the care

Nurses need to maintain a goal-orientated attitude to finish all the tasks during their shift. Many obstacles may stand in their way, but by keeping their goal in mind will help them make decisions to help accomplish their objectives in a timely manner. A good way to accomplish a task is by creating a SMART goal. A SMART goal for patient-centered care is education. Many times patients are labeled as noncompliant or unruly, but are they? As a healthcare professional it is easy to forget or assume a patient knows why they need to get out of bed, take a medication, or do a certain medical test. Just because a nurse knows the importance does not mean that the patient was educated on the need of any

| In the nursing education the student should be helped to appreciate that not all patients are going to leave the hospital disease free, and that as nurses there is a need to learn that we need to help them in any way we can to achieve their maximum amount

As a nurse, we have the responsibility of providing safe and patient-centered care to the community. Patients are more than numbers, and as nurses we must treat them as individuals who need attention and personalized care. While caring for patients, we must use

The student nurse has a personal definition of nursing as collaboratively caring of all individuals in a holistic manner, focusing on the prevention of illness and injury, diagnosis of symptoms, treatment of condition, and promotion of health and wellness. Nursing from a practical stance can be defined as the act of assessing a patient, diagnosis of the patient, providing patient outcomes, identification of a treatment plan, implementation of a plan, and evaluation of the plan. Anyone with a set of skills can practice the act of nursing, but it takes a special person to actually be a nurse. A nurse should be invested in the patient, be an advocate for the patient, and above all be caring towards the patient. A patient will surely not remember which nurse gave the best shot, but they will remember which nurse was the most caring. Nursing is more than administering medications and performing skills, but rather it is an art of knowledge and critical thinking combined with compassion and care.

The main goal of patient education should be optimizing the health of the patient .Educating about preventative health care not only benefits the patient but it also helps to reduce costs of healthcare. Some patients may be apprehensive about asking questions about their diagnosis, especially in sensitive cases such as acquiring an STD. In order for teaching to be effective the patient has to be ready to learn. The person providing the teaching, usually the nurse, should evaluate what the patient is interested in learning while also ensuring to teach what the patient needs to learn.

My philosophy of nursing is to be an advocate for patients and care and treat each patient holistically and always provide a safe environment while providing patient care. As nurses, we must remember that patients are not and should never be addressed by their room number or medical conditions. Each patient is required and deserves individualized attention and care. As nurses, we should implement individualize clinical judgment to help meet the needs of the patient according to their condition. As nurses, we should enable patients by urging them to end up plainly dynamic accomplices in their own care and take part in shared objective setting amongst ourselves and the patient. Medical professionals are entitled to keep up patient secrecy with the exception of when we have an obligation to report as ordered by law. We should teach patients and their families on illnesses, medicines, and sound practices with a specific end goal to enhance their results.

Nurses must be able to learn from each other, their seniors, and even patients on how to enhance the quality of care they provide. Through teaching and learning, nurses will understand that individual patients have varied preferences, values, needs, and respond well to different kinds of medication. In addition, continuous teaching and learning processes will enable nurses to know that individual patients experience varied side effects of the same prescribed medicines (Davis, Schoenbaum & Audet, 2005). Thus, nurses will understand the importance of consulting with individual patients while providing health care services to patients, and that illuminates the significance of patient-centered care in the U.S. health care system. As nurses a huge part of our duty is teaching the patient and our teaching cannot be effective if our communication is not the best, therefore we need to change the way we communicate in order for our patients to understand. Efficiency in health care services can as well be attained through proper communication. Other than communicating with fellow medical professionals in medical facilities while providing care to patients, nurses are directly obliged to communicate with their patients to find out their values and preferences when making clinical decisions. Essentially, consultation with patients, which is a major component of patient-centered care, is necessary

In order to improve patient education regarding their medication, a quality improvement project has been designed to educate nurses on techniques for effective communication. One evidenced-based process to improve medication education and communication is utilizing the teach-back method. This educational method has been shown to improve patient knowledge and retention of information (Nurit et al., 2009). The Joint Commission, American Medical Association, National Quality Forum, American Nursing Association, and the Health Literacy Collaborative have recommended implementing the teach-back method to provide effective communication to improve protection of patient safety (Iowa Health System, 2014). The teach-back method involves educating patients about a topic and having them repeat back in their own words what they understand about the topic. By using this method, the instructor can decipher the patients' understanding of the topic. If patients cannot repeat back the information or are incorrect in their answer, this then alerts the instructor that they require more information and education. The teach-back method has been found to improve patient outcomes and protect patient safety (Weiss, 2009).

Nurses should use clinical judgment and think critically when taking care of patients. As a nurse, we should remember that our patients come first and they are not numbers rather they are individuals in need of medical care. Nurses should accept and respect a patient’s view of their self and the world and should treat every patient as an individual, not as a group. Nurses should work collaboratively with the patient and other disciplines to provide the best healthcare service possible. Also, we should empower patient by encouraging them to be active members in their own care. Furthermore, we should educate family members, and patient about healthy behaviors, treatment, and prevention of diseases. We should also be a role model to the community and our

One of the biggest duties for nurses is to take care of their patients to the best of their ability, no matter their age, race, gender, and spiritual beliefs.

As the body ages and changes begin to occur, there is a stigma surrounding the aging body. When one typically thinks of an aging adult they may view the entire person as weak and deteriorating. Through my very little experience, while the aging body may not be what it once was, the mind and body can still be just as sharp, and in some cases, sharper than what is was years before.

Safety is the biggest factor when dealing with patients. It is very easy for a patient to fall, which is why high fall risk patients should always have an extra person near by just in case they were to fall. In addition, avoiding injuries is a key when patients are confused. When healthcare providers are effective in their roles, issues on the job tend to go smoother and much more efficient. Nurses need to be effective when dealing with patients who are not familiar with their medications. It is very important to teach them about what medications they are administering. I believe when the patient is informed of such things; he or she will have a better understanding of their health. The healthcare providers role is role be an effective professional and make sure things are up to date with their patient.

The call bells are ringing, the doctor is asking for laboratory results, and the patient is complaining of chest pain; all these are happening at the same time and handled by a single person—the nurse. In today’s society, nurses’ roles and responsibilities have drastically changed. Nurses are not only limited to a hospital setting where they are assessing patients, handing out medications or assisting doctors. Nurses are also a counselor, an agent of change and a patient’s advocate. Nurses can also be an educator in a classroom setting, during clinical practice of student nurses or through public presentations. In addition, nurses can also take up roles as part of the administration. Even though nurses’ workloads are constantly changing,

Patient education plays a vital role in nursing, and as first year nursing students it is important to our career to develop skills in the process of teaching as well as developmental theories. To practice this teaching process, we conducted two interviews with a 19-year-old female currently in the early adulthood stage. Ghorbani, Soleimani, Zeinali and Davaji (2014) state that patient education has been shown to reduced anxiety of patients and improve the satisfaction of health care. Client education is also said to improve the quality of life, helps to reduce illness complications, maximize independence and ensures that continuity of care is present (Bastable, 2014). Although within the health care system things preventing or decreasing the effectiveness of patient education may include nurses not have the knowledge of what to teach or how to teach it and lack of time and resources (Ghorbani et al., 2014). To understand further the important of patient education we must possess a knowledge of the education process including assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation (APIE) (Bastable & Alt, 2014). Throughout this paper, we will evaluate our use of the educational process by teaching the learner about caffeine.