Nursing as a career appeals to a lot of people, but a lack of information and proper instruction tends to be a hindrance and setbacks to a lot of potential nurses from venturing into it fully. But however, they need to have specific personal qualities to succeed in this profession, including to be compassionate, caring, kind and friendly.
What is nursing?
Nursing can be said to be the career within the healthcare sector that engrossed on the care of families, individuals, communities to maintain or recover the quality of life and optimal health. This job can also be referred to by four different and specialist roles namely; mental health, disability, pediatric, and geriatric. These group of skilled and qualified professionals are dynamic and work in every type of health setting from patient’s home to surgeries providing service for countless people in need, ill or vulnerable each year.
Nursing as a Career
If you are interested in choosing this career, you need to be aware of nursing concepts, processes and practice starting with the requests. The first step in understanding these procedures is registering with your country’s nursing board. This will serve as an introduction to the nursing career. Then depending on the country you reside, after having your vocational-specific degree, you will need additional qualification, for example, in the United States, after the basic education, you must pass the NCLEX-RN examination; while in the United Kingdom, it is a must you register with the nursing and midwifery council. It is very important to check your educational requirement and local registration before pursuing this kind of career.
In some countries such as the United Kingdom, the government may fund your training by providing stipends and tuition fees so you won’t have expenses to deal with during or at the end of your degree.
Roles of Nurses
A large responsibility of patients’ care is usually entrusted to an individual in this field especially as a skilled and qualified one. The roles of nurses include:
- Administering treatments and medicines described by doctors
- Helping to analyze result after performing diagnostic tests
- Consulting with other health personnel who are professional such as pharmacist or doctors
- Enlightening patients on how to manage illness or injuries both at home and long-term
- Making records of finding after observing the patient
The exciting part of these roles is that it can be done as part of a large team which may include doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapist and more making your workday challenging, fast-paced and highly rewarding irrespective of your nursing specialization.
Nursing Concepts and processes
In providing ultimate care to patients, nurses implement the nursing care plan using its processes which is based on a specific nursing concept selected based on the population served and care setting. Like other professions, this job has developed different theories derived from nursing concepts, processes, and practices. Examples of specialist areas in the nursing field are:
- Orthopedic
- Oncology
- In informatics domain
- Telenursing
- Perioperative
- Palliative
- Cardiac
- Obstetrical
Qualities/Attributes of Nursing
The one choosing to do this job should possess important qualities that will outline these concepts and ethics. Some of the attributes of this job should possess include:
- Kindness: it is not everyone that is comfortable seeing a health professional, they may get scared and frightened in the first instance, but a kind approach from a medical person can ease the patient fear.
- Ability to work in a team: Working as a team is a key to the success of any organization, and this also applies to nursing, as working together in a team make it easier to despatch all duties with ultimate ease.
- Emotional empathy: Dealing with a lot of people in different situations can be overwhelming. But being emotionally empathic will help in building a strong rapport with any patient you come across to treat.
- Integrity: working in the medical domain demands integrity, they need to have patient confidentiality and have the integrity to abide by it irrespective of the circumstance.
These skills, along with your qualifications and professional competence are what should be emphasized on, by those who want to venture into the nursing field.
Conclusion
Nursing requires a lot of dedication, handwork, education, right mannerism to be able to deal with difficult situations and patients. Saving people’s lives isn’t as easy as it seems, as you will face a lot of tragedies and hardships which can result in a stressful break. But it is excellent to know nursing, because people are looking for this kind of employee all over the world due to the shortage of skilled person who works in this domain. All you need is to get the right qualification and skills, then start your nursing as a career.
