Nurses: An Integral Part of Healthcare Systems - Essay Sample

Introduction

Nursing encompasses a wide range of activities ranging from tender care from the heart to an intuition from the mind to know the medical need of a patient. Nursing students in a class cannot learn some of these qualities; therefore requires mentorship and coaching to sharpen them. Nurses like doctors form an integral part of the health care systems in a particular country. In hospitals, nurses are the first point of contact before a patient before a doctor comes in. Additionally, the nurses keep and maintain health records of their patients, thus making it easier for the doctors to assess diagnose and treat a patient using the well-articulated files offered by the nurses (Johnstone & Facn, 2019). The health of an individual is essential, and any mistake in tests and records can have a gross effect on their lives, resulting in death. In college, nurses acquire the basics of caring for a patient with less time on practical.

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Moreover, the skills attained in class are not adequate for fresh graduates in nursing to operate on their own. It is, therefore, vital to embrace mentoring and couching in nursing. Mentoring can start while the nursing students are still in college by having attachments in the hospitals around the institutions. Senior colleagues play an essential role in sharpening the skills of junior nurses. This paper will address the situation in most hospitals, the skills acquired at the college level, the importance of mentoring and coaching, the worrying trends in hospitals, and the constraints that the junior nurses face while on their attachment and internship, where the government can cheap in to assist. Lastly, the paper will draw conclusion on the topic.

Situation in Hospitals

Over time the world has experienced different kinds of diseases that require medical attention to address the latest COVID -19 pandemic that has confused the globe, almost bringing the world to a standstill. The growing trends in new diseases have brought a surge in hospitals. Medical personnel is the first line of defense. Therefore, it needs to be well equipped to not only offer the required services but also restore the public's confidence to seek medical intervention in hospitals, unlike buying medicine over the counter. With the growing number of visits from patients to hospitals, most of the facilities are always overwhelmed due to understaffing and few or no modern machines to detect certain diseases. In every hospital, nurses are still more than doctors; therefore, mentoring and coaching this workforce improve on service delivery. Consequently, more lives are saved in hospitals, resulting in a healthy nation.

Skills Acquired in Class

Medical practitioners start their carrier journeys by attending classes in their various colleges. A guideline used by the instructors to deliver the course to students is formulated by the instructor so that it gradually prepares them to work in the hospital after graduation. These guidelines equip one with the necessary skills that need sharpening by attending practical classes, going for internships, and attachments (Hofler & Thomas, 2016). These practices gradually expose the learner to the hospital's real-life situation, the challenges that can arise in daily interaction with the patients, and how to assist them. As a newly employed nurse, one is not entirely in a position to handle a patient on their own for instance, in delivery rooms, a mother may experience an emergency requiring a qualified nurse or doctor to handle such a case to save a life. Sometimes the situation can be worse, for example, a life-threatening complication between the mother and the baby. Such cases like this one may put a junior nurse in a dilemma on what exactly to do, sometimes feeling guilty and not taking action. The presence of a senior nurse will give impetus to the operation, thus boosting the morale and confidence of the junior staff. These nurses gain confidence in attending to patients on their own after a certain period, thus improving service delivery to the residents seeking medical care.

Worrying Trends in Hospitals

Medical professionals like the nurses need to exhibit a high level of perfection in their practice since they deal with the delicate aspect of human beings that is life. A couple of mistakes have been committed in hospitals by new nurses (Hofler & Thomas, 2016). No matter how well-trained nurses may be, they are still bound to marking mistakes, more often, when they work for longer shifts. As a new nurse attending to patients can be exhausting, thus should be introduced gradually to help the new nurses assimilate themselves with the latest working conditions. Nurses have committed errors while administering drugs. When the nurses' confusion leads to un proper records, it arises that affects the quality of health care delivered to the patients (Hofler & Thomas, 2016). Mismatch of the samples can occur, leading to a patient being able to diagnose wrongly, resulting in significant malpractice. The nurse can confuse the patient’s identity and use medication meant for other patients and give it to another one. The mistake can have a significant adverse effect on the patients. Some patients do have allergies to the particular composition of drugs (Potter et al., 2016). Occasionally new nurses do forget to pick the history of the patients, thus realizing once the health care provider has administered the drug.

Another worrying trend is the infections occurring within the hospitals. Research has shown that several patients do acquire new diseases in hospitals due to negligence or lack of knowledge from the nurses. It is, therefore, essential to work under an experienced nurse to sharpen these skills, which the students learned during training. According to the CDC, the infection from hospitals accounts for 99000 deaths in America each year (Johnstone & Facn, 2019). The health care worker should learn from the veterans on how to achieve standard precautions, routine cleaning, and disinfection, and laying down strategies for infection prevention (Hofler & Thomas, 2016). Also, most hospitals lack medicines the nurse should offer to the patients. The worrying trend has negatively impacted on the service delivery by the new nurses. It is therefore vital that the government fully equips health care facility to enable health care workers to have an easy time in dispensing out their duties.

Also, documentation errors, the nurses have a lot of paperwork that they need to complete each time they are attending to the patients. Recording this information enables the nurse to provide the correct care for each patient. Information’s like health and drug administered, any point when the patient did not take medication as directed; unfortunately, sometimes are not recorded (Johnstone & Facn, 2019). This negligence has exposed health workers to a long-lasting battle in the court of law. Sometimes a nurse may be overwhelmed and calls for assistant form another health worker without giving proper details of the conditions of the patients and thus has led to various mistakes in the process.

Support from the Government

The academic journey of being a nurse may sometimes be exhausting; attending classes and attending ward rounds in both internship and attachment is occasionally hectic and needs financial support given to students as stipends to motivate them during this period. Some students usually become crafty and forge papers just to complete the course due to the hard economic times that these students face (Reich et al., 2016 ). Not finishing the internship and being employed without the employer's knowledge that this particular nurse has not completed the recommended course work can significantly have adverse effects on how this office will operate. More money should be diverted to the health sector to curb this problem. The government should consider building more hospitals and well equipping them so that the nursing students can get a platform to practice and get to learn from the nurses already employed in these hospitals. When better payments offered, the students will be encouraged to go through the stipulated course and undertake all the course requirements before attending to patients.

Since fresh graduates need constant information to face daily challenges in hospitals, the government should consider investing more in the digital world (Hofler & Thomas, 2016). The electronic data will greatly assist the new nurses in getting the previous records with a lot of ease. They will also refer to any challenges in the absence of the more experienced nurses or other medical personnel. Through this, the government will be able to maximize on the workforce and reduce the stress of students overcrowding in the hospitals to learn necessary skills like record keeping. Also, the nurse may need specialized training to attend to patients having certain n medical conditions like in dialysis, in the intensive care unit, ICU. Special care requires training that fresh nurses may not be able to afford (Reich et al., 2016). Thus the government should consider putting more resources to improve the capacity of nurses. The government should set aside funds for educating the communities to visit hospitals whenever they feel specific symptoms in case of an outbreak (Johnstone & Facn, 2019). Through this, the health care system is not overwhelmed, thus giving the nurses ample time to attend to manageable numbers.

Conclusion

Considering the insights from this paper, the training received from the learning institutions is not adequate for nursing students to practice without making a mistake. It is, therefore, important that the government and the instructors put more emphasis on enabling these students to achieve all the necessary practical skills before being left on their own. The government should consider increasing the retirement age limit to allow the senior health practitioner to pass the wealth of knowledge to the young and promising nurses. The mistakes highlighted in this paper show that mentoring and coaching in nursing are essential and, therefore, should be encouraged. The growing concerns of new diseases all over the world present a worrying trend and a looming disaster.

Consequently, nurses should work under more experienced practitioners to acquire the necessary skills on how to handle the patients may be in the future if such diseases reoccur when those in frontline now may be too old to attend to patients. Financing healthcare is an essential aspect of achieving sustainable health care. The paper should invoke thinking within the government to direct more funds so that the students may not find it unattainable to go through the process of mentorship to acquire more skills.

Achieving better health care in a country requires the health workers to be well trained through classwork, mentoring, and coaching to tap the knowledge from the more experienced employees in the health sector. Therefore, after attaining the retirement, it should be open for a health worker to either continue working or retire if they so wish with the government encouraging them to stay within the workforce. More hospitals should be built by the government or other partners to provide the necessary platform for practice.

References

Hofler, L., & Thomas, K. (2016). The transition of new graduate nurses to the workforce challenges and solutions in the changing health care environment. North Carolina Medical Journal, 77(2), 133-136. https://www.ncmedicaljournal.com/content/77/2/133.short

Johnstone, M. J., & Facn, P. B. R. (2019). Bioethics: a nursing perspective. Elsevier. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Z_uRDwAAQBAJ&oiPotter, P....