Nurses help people in every walk of life and in every part of business. A nurse career can take many forms, from working in a hospital with gravely ill patients, to working with healthy business people in a large, corporate office. Nurses help individuals from before birth to the time of death, and even help family members cope with the loss of a loved one after death. Nurses are there for almost every imaginable situation involving the health or illness of a person.
Nurses work in almost every aspect of life that one can imagine. People may think of nurses as only helping with gravely ill patients in hospitals. While the nurse is certainly still critically important in the function of every hospital, she is also involved in many other businesses as well. Nurses work in doctor’s offices, clinics, schools, prisons, corporations, insurance companies, and in the homes of their patients, among many other settings. Nurses are involved in some way in almost every possible setting, and help people maintain their health or recover from illness.
While still most widely-known for working with hospital patients, nurses are also involved in almost every other aspect of healthcare. Nurses help to take care of pregnant women and their babies, often assessing fetal health before the child is even born. Nurses are there at the moment of birth, assessing the health of the newborn and the mother. Nurses take care of sick children, and also help to ensure children remain healthy by giving vaccinations. Nurses help with the well-child and well-adult care of many people. In times of illness, patients count on nurses to provide life-saving medical care. Nurses are also with patients and their families at the time of death, providing care to the dying patient and emotional support to grieving families.
A nurse career does not always center on the actual patient. Some nurses work with insurance companies to assess health claims and to make sure the company is providing adequate coverage to its clients. Other nurses work with companies to instill wellness plans for employees. Still other nurses work as educators, teaching future nurses how to care for patients. Even though the nurse may not actually work with a patient, the health of the community is her focus.
Everyone has been helped by a nurse at one time or another. Nurses are there for many of the most important times in the healthcare of individuals, and they work to ensure the patient is cared for in health and in illness. Whether caring for the patient or the community, the nurse is always working to make healthcare better.
What Makes a Good Nurse?
When considering a nursing career, the potential nurse should consider if she has the qualities needed to be successful in the nursing profession. Good nurses are kind and compassionate, even in the face of patients who may not be very kind in return. A good nurse has the ability to work independently with little direction from others. Nurses are also required to be able to multitask, often being required to do many things at once. While there are many qualities that make up a good nurse, these are a few that should be of consideration.
Good nurses need to be kind and compassionate, even when the patient may not be. Nurses often care for patients and their families during the scariest and worst times of their lives. Patients and families may take out their anger and frustration on the nurse, as she is the person closest to the situation. Even when taking verbal abuse from these patients and family members, the nurse must understand that the anger is usually not really about the nurse herself, and she must have the compassion to help the patient work through the emotional aspect of illness. This can be very difficult for any nurse.
A good nurse is able to work independently with little direction. Nurses are often given nothing more than orders from doctors, and are expected to complete a nursing plan of care without any further direction. It is up to the nurse to decide what plan of action is safest and best for the health of her patient. When deciding upon a nursing career, it is important to realize that there may be little hand-holding or specific direction. Nurses are expected to know what to do to provide the best care for their patients.
A good nurse is able to multitask. Nurses are often required to do many tasks at what seems like the same time. Patients need care and medication at the same time, and charts must be completed. There is a seemingly never-ending list of items to complete, and the nurse must be able to plan care according to what is most important, and must be flexible with her care. A nurse will never know when the next emergency with a patient will come up and when the plan of care will need to be changed. The ability to multitask will help the nurse provide the best care possible for her patients.
There are many traits that are common among good nurses. As a part of the nurse career, it is important to realize that nurses need the ability to remain kind and compassionate no matter what the circumstances. They must be able to work independently and provide flexible care to their patients to ensure the best outcomes.
History of the Nurse Career
The history of the nurse career is a long one. Nurses have been taking care of people in some form for thousands of years. As medical care changes, nurses will be taking care of people for a long time to come.
Women have cared for others as a natural instinct since the beginning of humanity. Nursing as a profession probably had its start with wet nursing, which has gone on for thousands of years. Wet nurses feed the babies of mothers that either died during childbirth or shortly thereafter, or are hired by mothers for one reason or another to feed the child breast milk. Wet nursing as a profession began in the 1500s, when women would work as wet nurses, caring for the children of others while also taking care of their own.
Florence Nightingale is well-known as the mother of modern nursing. During the Crimean War of the mid-1800s, she cared for wounded soldiers and helped to bring clean conditions to the makeshift hospitals. Her care for these soldiers ushered in the modern era of nursing. After the war, Nightingale went on to found nursing schools, teaching other women what she had learned, and ensuring that there would be adequate care for the ill and wounded of her time.
Nursing has grown and flourished as a career since Nightingale’s time. Nurses now work independently to make decisions for their patient’s wellness. They are helping to change healthcare for the better and to make sure healthcare reform meets the needs of the community. Nurses will continue to grow as professionals well into the future, making the nursing career an excellent choice.