A Good Nurse Is Born or Made - Essay Example

A good nurse is born or made? This paper is a debate on whether a nurse is born or made or both. The answer is not available straightforwardly. In order to arrive at the answer, one has to examine nature of the job of the nurse , what is expected of the job holder and who would be best fitted for the job and to discharge the duties and responsibilities, whether the person should be a born nurse or the person can be moulded into an ideal nurse. This catch phrase ‘born or made’ is not unique to nursing profession alone. Whether a ‘business manager is born or made’ is a famously known one. Nurses are born Florence Nightingale has no better term for nursing. She says that nursing that is made to mean merely giving of medicines and application of poultices should actually mean more by enabling the patient to receive “fresh air, light, warmth, quiet”. She says symptoms are generally for want of these and not necessarily due to the disease. (Nightingale and Kessler, 2007). Nursing profession is still looked upon with some inherent deficiencies in spite of passage of time since the days of Nightingale during which period nursing profession has undoubtedly made a lot of strides scientifically in its function and outlook. It is just as mankind has to be still kept reminded of some of the basic tenets of life even after million years of evolution and in spite of unimagined scientific achievements of its own. Rush and Cook (2006) have found in their survey for what makes a good nurse, that 50 % of the responder patients attributed to ‘attitudes, 28% ‘skills’ and 22 % ‘knowledge’. Apart from these, ‘communication’ emerged as the major theme since it involved listening, willingness to communicate, explaining etc. Ten areas of communication identified by the authors are “listening, willingness to communicate, explaining, diversity, difficult subjects of situations, patients and carers, verbal, bedside manners, communication skills and written messages” { Rush and Cook 2006) p 383) As the responders put it, a good listener picks up all that she is told and puts back some thing in return to them. Non-verbal signal are also important that the patients are not left with the impression that the nurses though pretending to look interested in what patients say, do not take into their ears at all. On whether nursing is an occupation or a profession, it is no more an occupation but a profession. Occupation is a division of work requiring education and training, skill and knowledge base. Though all professions are occupations, not all occupations are professions. The latter have respect in the society as it is benefited by their services. They have a particular knowledge base, enjoy independence on training and education, need to be registered, display altruism in their service, code of conduct, socialisation and autonomy besides mission and vision. Until recently it was an occupation as an extension of services of wives and mothers and subservient to medicine. It has taken so long to evolve as a profession with a separate identity and knowledge base. (McEwen and Wills, 2006) As early as in 1921, there were criticisms of nurses having associations of their own and with their bargaining power they demanded wages which patients could not afford. In a bid to economise on services, hospitals tried to recruit women as sub-nurses or nursing aids for lesser pay. According to Dr Mayo, any intelligent girl can be trained to become a competent nurse within a period of two years. According to Dr Mayo, there are nurses who are real angels where there are people with pain and illness, reaching out to the sick with sympathy and consideration while at the same time there are people who call themselves as nurses but with the reverse attitudes of being callous, extortionate, trouble making and shirking. This state of affairs of suggests validity of the theory that good nurses are born and not made. {Topic of the times, 1921) While doctor chosen by the patient and family is responsible for the treatment, a nurse’s duty is to exactly carry out the doctor’s instructions besides taking care of patients as her own kith and kin. She should avoid sleep while on duty, be watchful to avert any patient jumping out of the bed in delirium, follow the chart for giving medication than depending on memory, mark the chart for things already done for the doctor to see, maintain quietness in the sickroom with not even the sound of her footsteps and offer patients prescribed food and drinks readily. These are basic qualities expected of a nurse for which any amount of training will not be sufficient unless she is naturally well dispositioned to them (Qualities of a good nurse) Though nursing is known as a female occupation, not every girl would enter the profession so easily. Because, young girls or boys are positively or negatively influenced to join the profession by their own parents or friends. Parents who are nurses themselves some times discourage with a shrill warning or encourage as beckoning call. (Miers, Rickaby and Pollard, 2007) Although the profession affords “career security, intellectual application, caring for the people, and academic scholastic achievement”(May et al 1991), it does not give free hands in decision making, guarantee safe working environment, liberal earnings, high respect and appreciation in the society. (Miers, Rickaby and Pollard, 2007, p3) The authors conclude that nursing profession can rely on students with an attitude of helping others and long standing motivation. Thus this profession heavily relies on altruistic recruits. (Miers, Rickaby and Pollard, 2007, p12) It has been seen girls are naturally dispositioned to be nurses. Florence Nightingale from a noble and rich family took to the profession voluntarily. The gender preference itself half justifies that nurses are born. And some of the basic qualities such as attitude, altruistic character etc fortify the idea that nurse should be definitely a born one. Nurses are made At the same time, it should be remembered that a person born with these qualities only can make a good nurse who in the modern age needs to acquire a lot of technical skills as an adjunct to doctor rather than subservient to him. Hence all the technical or special skills in the present day context should be present in a nurse. For achieving this, the nurse should be trained. Thames (2009), in her article says that fifty years ago nurses had to enter their hospitals through the back doors just as painters and delivery men did. And she had to simply follow what supervisor asked her to do in a memo as if she was just a hired helper. Now it does not happen this way. If a doctor throws surgical tools at a nurse in a fit of madness, she quits the job. But not all. Since hospitals are mechanised, patients have just to press the button when a caring and efficient nurse will come to attend. They work eight hours in a day in a place where people hate to visit. Nurses work here with grace and efficiency. McBride, M.D. (1900) observed that sacred duty of nurses was to maintain secrecy of the patients. He impressed upon the fact that nursing profession was not second in importance and that if it was less essential, then limbs were less than the tree and the hand less than the body. He also added that if nurses did not do their work, the doctors could not perform if the instrument was septic and the cloth was infected. Hence nurse could not expect to fall short of perfection. The nursing profession is seen now as autonomous and hence they are expected to be more responsible. A practice note says that nurses should be in the front line in a primary health care setting where they have to facilitate and manage patient care on an autonomous basis. NHS health care policy for primary health care says that nurses should have advanced nursing skills. Though few advocated GPs should be supportive of the nurses’ role in a primary care setting, majority advocated the independent and autonomous practice for nurses. Hence the policy says that nurses need to have access to advanced training. (Carr, 2000) Modern times nurse has become an integral part of the health care. It is not a way of making money but a holy profession. The profession calls for skills, hard work and devotion. In the first place, she should be well qualified and trained. As she is in frequent contact with patients, she should have excellent communication skills. She should be watchful and alert. She should be emotionally stable as hers is a stressful job witnessing every day’s traumatic experiences of patients. Presence of mind is crucial to the profession as she should not get confused in times of crisis. (Jiraqe, 2008) The above qualities do not always come with birth or inheritance. Modern and scientific management has proven theories that managers can be made and not necessarily born. (Javidan and House, 2001) Very few will be born with these qualities but they may not choose the nursing profession. Even if they do, they will not be adequate to take care of the ill. Hence a good nurse should be trained to become one and the good news is that it is possible. Conclusion It has been seen that nurses are necessarily born as well as necessarily made both being equally forceful. On a deep scrutiny, it is also a fact that attrition rates in the nursing profession are high for variety of reasons one of which is dislike of the profession. The shortage of nurses in western countries explains the fact that good nurses are hard to find. This leads one to surmise that nurses who remain in the profession have been born to be trained as nurses. Therefore it may be appropriate to conclude that persons born with the soft skills of a nurse are trained to become good nurse making the soft skills as their core skills References Carr Jacqui, (2000) “Issues for the nurse practitioner”, Vol 11 Issue 1, 18 Jan, Retrieved 9 April 2009 from Javidan Mansour and House J Robert, (2001) “Cultural acumen for the global manager: lessons from Project GLOBE”, Organizational Dynamics Volume 29, Issue 4, Spring 2001, Pages 289-305 Jiraqe Reshma, (2008) “Qualities of a good nurse”, Retrieved 9 April 2009 from May, F.E., Champion, V., Austin, J.K., (1991) “Public values and beliefs toward nursing as a career”, Journal of Nursing Education 30 (7), 303–310. May, F.E., Champion, V., Austin, J.K., (1991) “Public values and beliefs toward nursing as a career”, Journal of Nursing Education 30 (7), 303–310. McBride James Harvey, (1900), “The good nurse. An address delivered to the graduating class of College Hospital (1900)” American Libraries, Retrieved 9 April 2009 from McEwen Melanie, Wills M. Evelyn, (2006) Theoretical basis for nursing, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, p4 Miers E Margaret, Rickaby E. Caroline and Pollard C. Katherine, (2007) Career choices in health care: Is nursing a special case? A content analysis of survey data, International Journal of Nursing Studies, 44(2007) 1196-2009 Nightingale Florence. Kessler S Anita, (2007) Notes on Nursing Wilder Publications Qualities of a good Nurse, Household Companion: The Family Doctor, Retrieved 9 April 2009 from Rush Brenda and Cook Joan (2006)”What makes a good nurse? Views of patients and carers”. British Journal of Nursing vol 15, No 7. Thames Beth, A good nurse makes difficult situations better, Huntsville Times, 8 March, Retrieved 9 April 2009 from < http://www.al.com/living/huntsvilletimes/bthames.ssf?/base/living/123650378075 440.xml&coll=1> Topic of the Times, 1921 The New York Times, September 21, 1921, Retrieved 9 April 2009 from Read More