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What is your view of Professional Nursing?

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What is your view of Professional Nursing?
What is your view of “Professional Nursing”? Nursing is a profession that has its depth and breadth in meeting different health care needs of the population (American Nurses Association (ANA), 2010). What is it that makes a professional nurse? Is it caring for the patient with compassion and devotion? Based on the interviews conducted among the three categories of staff, it was echoed that professional nursing takes a lot more than just attending to the needs of patients.
From a professional perspective, nursing has a complex natural history of identification as a vocation with aspiration of being a profession from a long time (Brown & Libberton, 2007). In the past, the image of a nurse was as clear as, “the nurse is one whose studies give him or her just enough knowledge to follow and apply the decisions taken by the doctor or surgeon” (Gordon, 2000, p.218 cited in Harmer, 2010, p.295). Today, with the diversity of the nursing profession and the extension of the role of the nurse, defining a professional nurse is becoming complex. The identity of nursing is becoming blurred while trying to advance the profession (Harmer, 2010). According to Styles (2005) cited in Allen (2007), the attributes that are expected in professional nursing are higher academic education, a research based specialized body of knowledge, distinct service to society, a code of ethics, autonomy, accountability and authority over work.
Be this as it may, the International Labor Organization (ILO, 2005, p.12, L.20) described a professional nurse as “having the education and training recognized as necessary for assuming highly complex and responsible functions with authority to perform them”.
Much of the literature claims that a key characteristic of professional nursing is being knowledgeable in nursing (Smith & Godfrey, 2002). Knowledge is of great importance, but nurses need to possess specialized knowledge in the area



References: American Nurses Association, (2010). Considering Nursing? Silver Spring: ANA. Retrieved http://www.nursingworld.org/EspeciallyForYou/StudentNurses.aspx American Association of Colleges of Nursing Benner, P., Hughes, R., & Sutphen, M. (2008). Clinical reasoning, decision making, and action: Thinking critically and clinically. In R. Hughes (Ed.), Patient safety and quality: An evidence based handbook for nurses. Rockville, MD. Brown, J Davis, A. J., Hershberger, A., Ghan, L. C., & Lin, J. Y. (1990). The good nurse: Descriptions from the People 's Republic of China Gordon, S. (2000) Necessary nursing care. Nursing Inq. 7 (4), 217-219. Cited in: Harmer, V. (2010) Are nurses blurring their identity by extending or delegating roles? British Journal of Nursing. 19(5), 295-299. International Labor Organization (2005). Nursing Personnel Convention No. 149: Recognize their contribution, address their needs. Geneva: ILO. Retrieved http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/publ/health/c149.pdf Johnston, K Lachman, V. (2009). Practical Use of the Nursing Code of Ethics: Part I. Retrieved http://www.nursingworld.org/DocumentVault/Ethics/Practical-Use-of-the-Nursing-Code-of-Ethics-Part-I.pdf Melnyk, B., & Fineout-Overholt, E Nursing Standards. (2010). Nursing as a Profession. Retrieved http://currentnursing.com/nursing_management/nursing_standards.html Paul, R., & Elder, L Potter, P.A., Perry, A.G. (2007). Basic Nursing. Essentials for practice. 6th ed. Mosby:St Louis Resnick, B Smith, K. V., & Godfrey, N. S. (2002). Being a Good Nurse and Doing The Right Thing: A Qualitative Study Styles, M. M. (2005). Regulation & profession building: a personal perspective. International Nursing Review 52, 81-82.   Cited in: Allen, D. (2007).What do you do at work? Profession building and doing nursing. International Nursing Review. (54), 41-48. Stott, K. (2007). What makes a good nurse? Nursing Standard, 21(45), 77. The Canadian Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Registered Nurses (2008) Titler, M.G. (2008). The Evidence for Evidence-Based Practice Implementation. Retrieved http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2659/ Tomlinson, C Williamson, G. R., Jenkinson, J., & Proctor-Childs, T. (2008) Nursing in Contemporary healthcare practice. Exeter: Learning Matters.

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