Professionalism in the Workplace of Nursing Essay

It is important to integrate the concept professionalism into your nursing career because it allows you to flourish personally as a nurse but more importantly allows the patient to receive the care they deserve. Throughout the course of one’s nursing career there will be many slips and falls. Mistakes will happen but we as nurses are able to reflect and learn from them in a

To be a person who is deemed professional you have to have a sense of leadership. Leadership in the healthcare field means you have to be willing to teach others. You help build and maintain a culture that facilitates professionalism. As a leader you do not participate in workplace pranks. Another important aspect of professionalism is honor and integrity. To have honor and integrity in the workplace you need to be forthcoming with information; and not hold important information for your own benefit. You can admit your own errors. You deal with confidential information discreetly and appropriately. One of the most important attributes regarding professionalism is respect. You have to respect institutional staff and all staff representatives. You have to respect patients rights and dignity and their privacy and confidentiality. A person who is professional has to have caring, compassionate and have communication. You treat the patient as an individual taking into account lifestyle, religious beliefs, and ethnicity. You communicate bad news with sincerity and compassion. You deal with sickness, death, and dying in a professional manner with the patient and the patient’s family members.

Nurses must display a knowledge of skills by portraying a functional ability to assess, treat, and prevent illness in the clinical setting. “The nurses are obliged to gain specialized knowledge, skills and training through the rigorous study of biological, physical and behavioral sciences and then use this knowledge to diagnose and treat patients suffering from different ailments. The patients treated must be under the supervision of skilled medical practitioners and the nurse must be equally directed by the expert medical practitioner. The prevention and management of illnesses, injury and ailments also forms some of the major tasks that have to be carried out by nurses. Politeness in expression, compassion for patients and proper uniform are also some of the main parts of professionalism in nursing.” (professonalism in nursing http://www.buzzle.com/articles/professionalism-in-nursing.html)

A nurse is given an opportunity to help patients, either if its by helping them through a very serious sickness or just helping a patient get to the bathroom on time, or a time when happiness is overfilling the room and a child is being born. Registered nurses provide a wide variety of patient care services (Mitchell, p.12). A Nurse must always know where to begin and where to stop, as any other career in the health field there is always something that cannot be done by everyone but only the certified person, a nurse must always remain inside her scope of practice to prevent any misunderstandings. A nurse must also follow a code of ethics , the code of ethics of the American Association of Medical Assistants states that a nurse should at all times render service with full respect and dignity of humanity, respect confidential information obtained by a patients file, uphold the honor and high principles the profession and accept its discipline, and last but not least always want to improve her services to better serve the health and well being of the community. (Mitchell, p.65).

The purpose of this essay is to look at barriers of compassion and what nurses could do overcome these barriers. Three sub topics will be looked at over the course of this essay and a conclusion will be made to evaluate these essays findings and to provide some input into battling these barriers so that patients can receive high standards of patient care.

Compassion and respect are essential attitudes for nursing practice. Compassion has been described as the “wounding of the heart” or a

Nursing is an occupation in which professionalism (or lack thereof) can have a significant effect on not only patients and their health, but the nurse’s relationships with colleagues, patients’ families and even their community. A nurse must exemplify professionalism, especially in an environment that creates increased risk for loss of life or further injury. There are many aspects that are involved with professionalism in nursing, and many expectations set up on the nurse.

Compassion represents an “acknowledgement of another’s suffering and is accompanied by the expression of a desire to ease or end that suffering.” (Van der Cingal, 2009, p. 124) This is a fundamental characteristic usually found in health care workers and nurses especially. In one twelve hour shift, a nurse’s job can change from taking vitals and administering medications to performing life saving measures

Everywhere you go and in everything you do, professionalism comes in to account in some way or another. Professionalism has been defined as, “a strict adherence to courtesy, honesty and responsibility when dealing with individuals or other companies in the business environment” (Clarke, 2015). When it comes to the career of nursing, professionalism is taken to a whole other level. Not only does professionalism come in to account with your business professionals and peers, but you have patients with whom professionalism is highly practiced as well. Professionalism in nursing means that you are able to handle all the responsibilities given to you in an efficient and proper way. It means that when you are given an order that needs to be carried out by a doctor or a patient who needs your help, you adhere to what is being expected of you in a timely manner. Physicians put trust into nurses in order to carry out orders that are needed to save patients’ lives. If you’re not looked at as professional and responsible, it is going to be very hard to have a successful career. Responsibility is what nursing is all about. Professionalism in nursing means that along with taking on big responsibilities, you have discipline. Discipline in nursing is crucial to being successful. Not only to keep your patients safe, but so that you personally are on the ball and looked at by others as professional, therefore, making you a great nurse. Professionalism means that you have the

This essay discusses public expectations of nurses, nurse-patient relationships and how to set their guidelines through professional behavior and professional boundaries, what they mean to nurses, and the connection between professional behaviour and professional boundaries.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines professionalism as “the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well” (Merriam-Webster, 1828). I believe nurses are held to a higher standard of professionalism due to the importance and severity of their jobs.

Nonetheless, professionalism in health care systems goes hand and hand with patient-centered care. In order for nurses to perform their responsibilities with professionalism, they must provide health care services that are effective, beneficial, and acceptable by their individual patients; and that explains the importance of patient-centered care in the medical systems.

Nightingale said, “The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm”. The history of nursing initially begins with Florence Nightingale. Before her era nurses had a tarnished reputation (Glasper, 2017). They were poorly educated and incompetent people. Nurses such as Mrs. Bedford Fenwick wanted to change the image of nursing. They did this by leading a campaign for professionalism. Which led to the culminated Nurse Bill receiving is royal assent in December 1919 (Glasper, 2017). July 27, 1921 was the official opening of the nursing register, there are currently 688,927 nurses registered with the Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC) (Glasper, 2017). The NMC code has four themes of professionalism, “Prioritizing

David Cameron (Uk Prime Minister) argued that nursing has been ‘over academicised’ and the new graduates may not mirror the vocationally driven needs of clinical work (Santry, 2010). Moreover, Crigger & Godfrey (2011) stipulates that professionalism is attached to moral qualities and resilience in practice have not been well linked or researched in nursing fiction. Similarly, Abbott (2010) argues that professional nurses fight among themselves via redefinition of each other’s job, making the profession seem unstructured features. Qualities like bravery, meekness, forgiveness, integrity, and empathy are developed and inherent but professional identity is shifting from these virtues (Crigger & Godfrey, 2011; McCammon & Brody, 2012). Furthermore,

Professionalism is a fundamental concept that is determined by learning the norms, attitudes, behaviors, skills, roles and values of the profession. Professional identity means the internalization of values and norms of the profession into the behavior and self concept of the individual (Creasia & Parker, 2007 ).Traditional recommendations to promote nursing into a complete profession predicated on developing a body of specialized knowledge and using scientific methods to enlarge theoretical basis; education in university settings and acquiring clinical competence; adherence to a code of ethics; self regulation and autonomy; in addition to lifetime commitment and service to the public (Keogh, 1997; Wynd, 2003; Alidina, 2013). From a sociological point of view, acquiring specialized knowledge and having control over the work environment are two essential characteristics of a profession (Freidson, 2001). Lack of autonomy was a major threat for nursing to achieve full professional status (Kelly, 1987; Smith, 2003; Creasia, & Parker, 2007). Determining the professional status of nursing in the modern society is by no means an easy task as different countries have different opinions on the matter (Keogh, 1997). According to Colyer (2004), health professionalism is a function of both culture and time and is influenced by the ideology that determines public policies and the delivery of health care services.