Should A Registered Nurse Be An Environmental Activist?

The four spheres of political action in nursing as mentioned by Mason, Leavitt, and Chaffee (2011) includes the workplace or workforce, the government, the organizations, and the community. The authors further stated that although the four spheres overlap at times, the action performed in any one of these spheres can cause a reaction in any of the others. Nurses are a part of the community in which they live and can influence health and social policy within their workplace, which can have a profound impact on the organization. Furthermore, the government can pass health care policies, which in turn causes the organization to change their policy. Thus, affecting healthcare providers in the workplace and the community at large. An example of

This paper will examine the origin of the nursing theory in reference to the Florence Nightingale Theory of Positive Manipulation Of the environment. Initially the paper will introduce the theorist and the context in which the theory was developed. Will critique the theory according to nursing theory critique. The paper will further describe the utility of the theory with respect to practice, administration, education and research will also examine the empirical precision of the theory(testability and logical adequacy). Infact the entire paper demonstrates the understanding of the theory.

The concept of environment and its integral role in the delivery of nursing care was among the first identified and documented nursing theory since its early days. Florence Nightingale pioneered the profession of nursing and along with it, pioneered the concept of nursing theory. Her environmental theory was patient focused and incorporated five environmental components needed to promote health. Jarrin (2012) supported that the role of nursing is to promote the best possible environment for the patient to assist in their natural reparative process. According to Rahim (2013), as considered as the profession’s first nurse theorist, Florence Nightingale provided the essential foundation in environmental theory. She believed

Political activism is an important complement for nurses in the clinical practice. Nurses are in an exceptional position not only to provide quality bed side care to their patients but also to advocate for change within the community and political field. Common problem affecting a group of people can be a political issue. Identifying the cause of this issue and advocating to solve the root cause with the help of decision makers like politicians, hospital executives, managers or government bureaucrats, nurses can bring beneficial changes in Canadian Health care system.

The environment theory of nursing is a patient-care theory. The delivery of patient centered care is the best delivery of care a patient can receive. Applying Nightingales environmental care theory of manipulation of the patient environment can affect the patient and assist in the delivery of quality of care. The concept of a clean patient environment has an effect on the patient’s recovery and the prevention of spread of diseases (Harvard Libraries, 2012). Using Florence Nightingales environmental theory and concepts will give a

The purpose of this paper is to discuss my personal beliefs pertaining to the profession of nursing. As well I will discuss the (4) metaparadigms in nursing which are known as; human beings, environment, health, and nursing, and my personal beliefs on these concepts and how they have similarities to the nursing philosophy of a nursing theorist.

Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health professionals, in regarding health care in the United States(Institute of Medicine, 2011).Nurses should be full partners because who knows nursing and what nurses need better than a nurses themselves? In care environments, being a full partner involves taking responsibility for identifying problems and areas of waste, devising and implementing a plan for improvement, tracking improvement over time, and making necessary adjustments to realize established goals (Institute of Medicine, 2011).The expense of certain supplies and equipment could be decreased over time if nurses had more say in their environment and resources. On many floors in hospitals, certain supplies are not needed

Naomi Higenbottam, an environmental activist believes, "Nurses have a responsibility to the people of the world to be an environmental health activist and raise awareness of the health implications of environmental changes, to support policies to reduce health vulnerability and to build capacity to adapt to climate change." Nurses begin to teach people about the small changes they can make in their homes that will have a huge impact on the environment. They are cautious of their environmental choices. Nursing education and practice have evolved to adequately deal with the increase in environmental health issues. "Nurses are in an excellent position to provide leadership in implementing the principles of reducing, reuse, recycle, recover and re-educate in the workplace" (Higenbottam). The right to a healthy environment requires a healthy human habitat, including clean water, air, and soil that are free from toxins. By nurses providing leadership, death and disease rates will go down and a cleaner environment will bound to happen; because nurses are providing a safer and disinfected area. Nursing resources will be scarce in many places, such as high-density populations, areas most affected by the environmental changes, and the poor population. "They address the global environment changes because it will have a vast impact on the nursing profession" (Higenbottam).

Individuals involved in political action are often looked at as advocates, moreover, nurses specifically have a role in advocating for the marginalized, disenfranchised, and vulnerable populations. The impact nursing has on political action dates back to “the 1960s and 1970s with the push for women’s rights and issues surrounding consumer rights” (Mason, et al., 2016, p. 31). Nurses became known as advocates for their patients which physicians interpreted to going against what they felt to be in the best interest of the patient’s health. The nurses were not carrying out the orders physicians gave, stating they were advocating for their patients. With the movement of nurses advocating for their patients, that opened the doors for an opportunity where nurses could begin practicing autonomously and establishing nursing as a profession. Some states have gone so far as to defining, within their nurse practice act, how nurses will advocate for their patients, nursing, and the health care field (Mason, et al., 2016, p. 32). Quality of a great advocate include, feeling empathy towards the patient, situation, or issue. As you learn to empathize, you become passionate about the situation and/or issue (e.g. health disparity), thus becoming engaged in the situation. As nurses, we are extremely passionate about what we do. This leads us to tap into our moral compass and how we identify with the patient, situation, or

In a profession where others' health and well-being are priority, there leaves room for neglect of those who are delegated to care for these people. As a professional nurse, there are many obstacles that arise and affect the care provided to a patient, as well as the livelihood of the nurse. The current deteriorating and unsafe staffing conditions in hospitals and other institutions prompts workplace advocacy as the universally appropriate concept for maintaining professional nursing practice. The Arkansas Nurses Association and the Louisiana State Nurses Association define workplace advocacy as a planned, organized system of services and resources designed to support the professional nurse in the workplace (White Paper on

The Environmental Theory by Florence Nightingale defined Nursing as “the act of utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery” (Alice Petiprin, 2014). It involves the nurse’s initiative to make environmental settings appropriate to aid in the recovery of the patient’s health. According to Nightingale all external factors are somehow associated with the patient and affects their life physically, mentally, and socially (Alice Petiprin, 2014).

Introduction- To be effective, a modern nursing must balance patient care versus staffing; procedures versus patient load; egos versus patient need; and, unfortunately fiscal budgeting versus appropriate care. The modern nurse must realize that there position is one of continual multiple horizontal priorities, and act accordingly. As managers, regardless of the subfield, we will be expected not only to understand the organization's budgetary concerns, but to actively manage them as well (Lumby and Picone, 2000). By the very definition of nursing, however, the contemporary nurse must be one of the focal points towards overall healthcare and maintenance for the community. Much like regular maintenance on a vehicle, if nurses can lead a health promotion activity that promotes wellness, over time there is a far greater chance of diminishing high healthcare and emergency room costs. By educating the population about risk management and proper care, then, health goals are more likely to be met.

The concept of environment and its integral role in the delivery of nursing care was among the first identified and documented nursing concept since its early days. Florence Nightingale pioneered the profession of nursing and along with it, pioneered the concept of Nursing Theory. Her Environmental Theory was patient focused and incorporated five environmental components needed to promote health. Jarrin (2012) supported that the role of nursing is to promote the best possible environment for the patient to assist in their natural reparative process. It dates back from the time of ancient Greek philosophers and historians, including Plato, Hippocrates, and Aristotle, whose works are studied by Nightingale in her early years. According to Rahim (2013), as considered as the profession’s first nurse theorist, Florence Nightingale provided the essential foundation in environmental theory. She believed that some laws of nature, when applied and integrated into nursing care, can assist individuals in restoring their health during their illness, and, in those who are already healthy, promote health and prevent illness.

“Specifically with regards to the environment concept, Roy asserts that there are at least four different ways through which it is examined in Nursing studies. In the first approach, the concept is called underspecified meta-paradigm construct, which is compatible with the notion of the environment as a mediating presence. The second view sees environment as the communicative context, that Is, the phenomena under study exist in the social and historical position of the person. The third way to conceptualize the environment is to define it as social positions of an open field, where the nurse 's social position can be seen as positive when related to patients and negative for the profession 's institutional subordination to medicine. Lastly, the environment is still conceptualized as a survey list of extraneous variables, where effects that modify the variables of a hypothesis diminish the generalization of theories”. Enfermagem, L., Rev. (2006, March & April)

The nurse today can be compared to a person who busies himself/herself with process of rescuing a situation to the extent that he/she finds no time to investigate the real cause of the problem. If a nurse could know the real cause of the problem, then he/she would be capable of eradicating it once and for all. This act of finding the real cause of the problem is what entails political activism and this is what should be running in the blood of every nurse.