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Nursing has taken me around the world. The profession has been my international passport. I travelled with it everywhere I went. I stationed myself in one major country and then travelled to other surrounding countries for visits whenever I had vacation time and had saved enough money for my many travels. Touring places of interest has pushed me on in my career. The global shortage of nurses has made it easy to enter into other countries to work. Besides the benefits of travel, nursing knowledge is also handy for everyday life. I have had friends ask me for advice on their health. I can also keep tabs on my family's health. I diagnosed my mother's heart problem before her doctor did by just listening to the signs and symptoms she related to me. Nurses can apply their nursing knowledge or learning to support their family and friends.
I have seen the nursing system change from being task-oriented to case management. Nurses are often asked to change with time. Patients are called clients as they are consumers more than they are patients. They are known or called by name instead of being known by their bed or room number. Nurses' knowledge base has also increased through time. A great bulk of behavioural science knowledge has increased. Nurses are expected to give more than their client's physical needs, attending to their clients' physical, psychological, spiritual, emotional and mental status. Besides understanding the disease process, nurses need to know how disease affects the client's family, as well as the client themselves. The importance of continuity of care continues to be emphasised in centres where I worked. Primary nursing is being practised widely in the Health Care System. Some health care systems had modified primary nursing somewhat to suit their needs. Whatever the changes made, the clients' needs are focused, and most of all the costs of meeting those needs are met.
Nursing has come a long way, but has it come far enough? The nursing profession has to be recognised fully as a profession and not just with words. Nurses need to be paid according to their worth like other health professionals. They make decisions, are accountable and just as responsible as other health professions. Their long hours in shift work often deprive them of their social life. They were and are seen to be social beings for the pleasure of man. It is still being seen as a female dominated profession, however no doubt male nurses are being recruited and are seen to be better managers than their female counterparts.
Nurses claim to be a professional body but with their claims are they accountable for their patients' care? I feel the new graduates need to build their confidence in carrying out nursing procedures. Experienced nurses need to assist them in building up their confidence and more clinical hours should be built into the nursing curriculum. Nurses need to learn how to support one another and not run one another down constantly. We need to grow together professionally and share knowledge with one another. There are many ways of skinning a cat and not one method is the best way of rendering care. With the globalisation of nurses, there are often ideas that nurses can learn from one another; from another country or culture. Nurses need to have an open mind and ask questions and have respect for one another, recognising one another's knowledge and talents so that we can find the best way to see to our clients' needs - maintaining a team with honest respect with a passion to serve and give our best in nursing. Nurses need to grow maturely together; a nurse cannot progress alone. Having power in giving orders and being arrogant in being a senior is not growth; it can be restricting to the growth of nursing. The senior nurses who have the power to make changes should have an open mind and be able to communicate and discuss the management of clients' care with their staff members. We need to be able to assess, measure and evaluate nursing care and make sure it is effective for the clients' needs and not the nurse's ego. The decisions made should have the advantages, priorities and needs of the clients. We need to think and create new strategies in applying our theoretical knowledge into our clinical settings for our clients' best care.
Best of all nursing is a career which is depression proof. There is always a job for nurses. The world is crying for more educated trained nurses. A confident nurse can travel around the world with no problems finding a job if the qualifications are met for registration in that particular country.
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